Chocolate-hazelnut brittle recipe

While peanut brittle gets the attention, this buttery caramelized treat can be prepared with any nut. In this version, we added a touch of sophistication by using hazelnuts and then dressed it up by drizzling the finished candy with chocolate and sprinkling it with salt. Since we didn’t want a chewy candy, we added fat to the mixture in the form of butter, rather than liquid cream like we use in our Salted Caramels, cooking the butter with water, corn syrup, and sugar until the amber mixture reached the right temperature. Before adding the hazelnuts to the caramel, we stirred in some baking soda; the soda neutralizes the acids and creates air bubbles in the caramel mixture so it’s crunchy but not a jawbreaker. Toasting the hazelnuts added depth to the candy as did stirring some salt into the caramel mixture, which balanced the sweetness and brought out the flavor of the toasted nuts. A final sprinkling of salt over the chocolate drizzle really made all the ingredients shine. You will need a thermometer that registers high temperatures for this recipe.