Pecan Brittle

This pecan brittle is seriously some of the best tasting stuff that will ever grace your lips, I promise. Cody's mom made some for us. I loved it so much that I made 5 batches and gave it out to close friends and neighbors in a Christmas goodie bag. Several people have asked me for the recipe and twice as many have commented on how good it was. The best part is how simple it is! Unlike most brittle recipes that involve a candy thermometer and careful stove top cooking, this recipe is made in the microwave. So, as a Christmas gift to my blog readers, here is the recipe:

Microwave Pecan Brittle

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup pecan pieces (chop kinda chunky)
1 tsp Mexican vanilla
1 Tblsp butter
1 1/2 tsp soda

Before you start, butter a cookie sheet well. Combine sugar, corn syrup and salt in a glass Pyrex (or other microwaveable) bowl. Cook for 4 minutes on high. Add pecans, stir well and cook 4 more minutes. Add vanilla and butter, stir well and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from microwave and add soda, stir well but quickly, just enough so you can see the soda has gotten into the mixture, then STOP stirring--I only stir maybe 8-10 "stirs." It will immediately start to foam up when the soda hits the other mixture and that's what makes it light. Then immediately pour out onto the buttered cookie sheet and scrape it all out at once. Quickly pick up the cookie sheet with pot holders (as it gets hot in a hurry) and just tilt and kinda shake the cookie sheet to spread it--it will do it on its own--when it doesn't spread any more, I stop. DO NOT SPREAD WITH A UTENSIL. Let cool completely, then you can loosen the whole big piece, turn it over and take a paper towel and wipe the butter off the back so it won't be greasy. Then take the handle end of a table knife and whack it into pieces, as small as you want.

A couple of notes: make sure to use a glass (not plastic) microwave bowl, Mexican vanilla can be picked up at a Mexican grocery store. I'm sure regular vanilla would taste fine, but the Mexican vanilla gives it a special flavor that really does make it the best. Also, the bowl will look like it will be such a pain to clean, but it isn't bad. After it cools, just fill it full of hot water in the sink and let it sit about 10 minutes. It cleans right up. Two more things, it's important to scrape out the brittle onto the sheet as fast as possible because it starts to harden immediately, and the reason you don't spread it with a utensil is because that breaks the air bubbles and makes it too hard to eat.