Crunchy, sweet, lemon-scented pine nut brittle makes a great gift or a quick and simple snack.
The most known brittle may be the peanut butter brittle, so I wanted something different and used pine nuts, roasted pine nuts and lots of them.
This brittle can easily be broken into tine pieces, so you can savor them for a long time. Put them in your mouth and allow them to melt, then enjoy the pine nuts.
Key Ingredients in This Recipe
- Pine nuts
- Butter
- Sugar
- Lemon zest – orange zest can be used as well.
I recommend you roast the pine nuts prior to adding them to the syrup. It adds more flavor. I tried it both way and the roasted version if superior to the non-roasted version.
How to Make the Lemon-Scented Pine Nut Brittle
- Butter a baking sheet, to prevent the brittle to stick to it
- Heat sugar and water in a heavy sauce pan until dissolved. Stir regularly, gently. You don’t want the sugar to stick to the walls of the pan.
- Once dissolved, bring it to a boil. Do not stir, but swirl the pan. Boil until you have a nice deep golden color. Attention!! Once the color starts to change and you don’t pay attention, you can easily burn the syrup.
- Add the butter, lemon zest and salt and coat nuts.
- Spread out onto the baking sheet. You want to end up with 1 layer, not stacked nuts. You can spread it out wide, or keep the nuts close together.
Allow to cool and then break into pieces. Large ones, small ones, whatever you like.
Store in an airtight container or pack for gift giving. Transfer the pieces in a beautiful glass jar or a transparent plastic bag with a ribbon. The lemon-scented pine nut brittle is colorful enough that you don’t need necessarily a fancy container.
Lemon-Scented Pine Nut Brittle
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup pine nuts roasted
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1.5 tablespoons water
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon butter
Instructions
- Butter a baking sheet.
- In a heavy saucepan, combine sugar and water and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook until it turn golden. Don’t stir, just swirl the pan every now and then. This will take max. 10 minutes. (Note 1)
- Add the nuts, lemon zest, butter and salt and mix until coated.
- Pour mixture onto the baking sheet and spread with a spoon. Make sure you have 1-layer of nuts.
- Cool completely and break into pieces. Store in an airtight container.
Notes
- Be aware that once the color starts turning it can quickly go too far.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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