Clear the decks. Salt brittle brings salt and sugar together as an edible mosaic. Eat it on its own, or serve a shard of salt brittle alongside paprika pork chops. Serve with fruit salad or endive salad with walnuts and Roquefort cheese. Crumble over unsweetened yogurt, oatmeal, or chili con carne. Himalayan salt is hard to use because—well, because it’s hard—but its rocky texture and gemstone beauty contribute brilliantly to brittle.
Recipe information
Yield
makes about 1/4 pound
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Grease a sheet pan and a metal spatula liberally with butter and set aside.
Step 2
Put the sugar in a large nonstick skillet and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until the sugar begins to melt and lump up, about 5 minutes.
Step 3
Add the agave syrup. The mixture will start to foam. Stir constantly as the mixture thins and turns a deep amber, and the lumps start to melt. When almost all the lumps are gone and the sugar is the color of George Hamilton’s tan, turn off the heat.
Step 4
Immediately stir in the tablespoon of butter and the baking soda. The liquid will become very foamy for a second. Stir until the foam is no longer streaky, about 10 seconds, and immediately pour onto the prepared pan, scraping as much of the melted sugar from the pan as possible with your stirring spoon.
Step 5
Sprinkle the salt over the top of the sugar and count to twenty-four. The edges of the sugar pool should now be firm. Slide your spatula under the sugar all the way around to loosen from the pan, and flip it over.
Step 6
Working quickly, stretch the sheet of sugar to about 1/16-inch thickness before it becomes too brittle to move. The easiest way is to carefully push it with your hands into a larger, thinner sheet. If some parts are thinner than others, don’t worry. If your hands are very sensitive to heat, you can wear latex gloves, but it’s harder to work the sugar that way, so I advise you to suck it up and use your hands. It won’t be that hot. When the sugar is too brittle to move, stop pushing and let it cool.
Step 7
Break into shards and serve. The drier the environment, the longer the brittle can be stored. Kept in an airtight glass jar or resealable plastic bag, it will retain its snappy texture for at least one week.
