If you’re not typically drawn to peanut brittle, Allison
Lindsey’s version of it will change your tune about the Christmas candy. Hers
is rich and buttery; more distinguished than the cloyingly sweet store-bought
stuff. And the real magic of Allison’s peanut brittle it doesn’t stick to your
teeth as much as the others do.
Peanut brittle, though, sticks with Allison. It’s been that
way for the sous chef at West Baden Springs Hotel for a couple decades, ever since Allison was about 8 years old.
“My Grandma Schmitt — she’s no longer with us, but she’s the
one who has really inspired me throughout my whole culinary career — she’d
always ask me, ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ And I’d always say, ‘I want
your peanut brittle. No peanuts. Just the brittle.’”
At first, the request prompted a puzzled look from Grandma.
Allison just didn’t prefer the taste and texture of the whole peanuts on top of
the candy. So Grandma adjusted. She gave the peanuts a quick zap in the food
processor to reduce them to smaller bits, mixed them in with the brittle base,
and Allison ate up the modified peanut brittle version and kept asking for it
every holiday season.
Fast forward to now, and Allison is likewise tinkering and
evolving with her go-to holiday treat.
While Allison never got her grandma’s peanut brittle recipe,
she developed a favorite formula of her own. Then, when she moved to Hawaii for
a stint and worked at a restaurant, her sous chef Ed asked her if she ever made
brittle, as their restaurant garnished their crème brulée with it.
Yeah, peanut brittle,
I know how to make that, Allison told him.
No, it’s mac brittle,
Ed insisted, referring to the lightly toasted macadamia nuts grown in Hawaii.
“So he taught me how to make mac nut brittle. I was just
kind of mind-blown at 23 being like, you can make a different brittle with a
different nut? Even now I’m kind of in this mindset of it needs to be a
different brittle – it needs to have goji berries or dried fruit in it, or
chocolate on top. I try to up my game on the whole peanut brittle scene from
when I was a child.”
Allison’s traditional brittle recipe is below for you to
follow along. Though as she does herself, feel free to swap out the peanuts for
something else.
Brittle with hazelnuts. Brittle with apricots. Or cranberries.
Or sprinkled in sea salt. Sometimes Allison will dip the broken-up brittle
pieces in tempered chocolate — dark chocolate is her favorite, but milk or
white chocolate also works well — to dress up the candy yet another way when
she wraps it up and gifts it to friends and family at Christmastime.
Just like grandma used to do with that coveted candy Allison
looked forward to.
“Having these different recipes and traditions … I’m trying
to make it more than someone else’s idea. I’m trying to make everything my own
idea, putting a bigger twist on it.”
Allison's Brittle Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups white sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8-10 oz. chopped nuts of your choice
1.) In a heavy-bottom 4-quart pot, add sugar, corn syrup and water and mix until sugar dissolves.
2.) Add butter and whisk on medium to high heat until the color starts to turn a light amber. Turn off heat.
3.) Whisk in baking soda and vanilla extract. Have a baking sheet ready and lined with a Silpat or rubbed with butter to keep the brittle from sticking to your pan.
4.) Once the baking soda and vanilla extract are whisked in,
quickly and carefully pour out onto prepared pan. Use a rubber spatula to
scrape all the hot brittle mixture from the sides of the pot. Before the
brittle hardens, sprinkle chopped nuts on top. A sprinkle of sea salt also adds a nice touch. Feel free to add other
things on top, like dried fruits, crunchy bacon pieces, seeds, crushed
pretzels, etc.
5.) Let the brittle completely cool on pan. Once cooled, grab
the brittle from the edges and start breaking it in pieces.