Shattered

I'm feeling confident I can do this recipe. It sounds simple enough.....pumpkin seeds and brittle. Wait, this is going to involve the melting of sugar isn't it? Okay, bring it on. I'm still feeling somewhat confident.

Maybe I'll need to use my new candy thermometer. A new toy makes everything better...even denial. (true story) Oh dear, I just looked at the recipe and no candy thermometer is required. (but...but how do I know when the sugar is done?)

Now I'm not a huge fan of brittle. But I'm going to put aside my feelings and work through this......at least until I have to break it apart into all those uneven misshapen pieces. <shutter> I like nice even shapes thank you very much. But I'm using this baking therapy to help me work through this issue of mine.  So let's begin the session.

Proof I'm working through my baking issue.....I even made the Toffee Pumpkin Cookie Brittle recipe from Patty's Food Blog (thanks for sharing that Patty. I love seeing what Patty has made!!) http://pattysfood.com/cookies/toffee-pumpkin-cookie-brittle/
and I actually made them into brittle pieces.....


When you're this big they call you Mister.

but I wanted so badly to make them into individual nicely shaped cookies.

Or even keep it as one big cookie!! 



 





A brittle cookie



I did it. 

I broke a cookie.....a perfect big beautiful cookie.....shattered.

Okay, back to the brittle at hand. One would almost think I'm afraid to start making the toasted pumpkin seed brittle. (that's crazy talk I tells ya....crazy)

Step 1)  Buy a pumpkin

Step 2)  Cut into pumpkin

Step 3)  Rip insides out of pumpkin to get to seeds

yeah....about that....sounds messy. 

 

Say, can't I just go out and buy raw pumpkin seeds?? 

Hey, I broke a cookie!  That's enough therapy for one blog post!  Baby steps.




 

The toasting of the seeds was easy...once I got all those seeds out of the pumpkin (let me finish) seed packages. 

I forgot how tasty toasted pumpkin seeds were.  Mmm Toasty goodness.


Now to the sugar mixture.  I was a little anxious to get this part going after reading some posts on Baked Sunday Mornings  site this week.  I took Sheri's advice on the meaning of "clear"-- as in it just means the sugar needs to dissolve. (done)  From there, I added the butter as instructed and brought it up to a boil, set the timer for 8 minutes and walked away from it.  I think 'walked away' might be a bit of an exaggeration....it may have been more pacing and staring at the boiling pot.


Apparently a watched pot does boil.

  It took just over 9 minutes for it to get to a desirable colour.
The adding of the baking soda is freaky as it totally bubbles up and gets frothy.  I'm not going to lie, I was sure it was going up and over the pot.  But calming bubbles prevailed and all was well.

Baking Soda madness

I had to work quickly to get the brittle spread out onto the baking sheet, as it hardens up super fast once it leaves the hot pot.  But it all got spread out and then I went for the chocolate layer.  I was only going to put chocolate on part of the brittle (hence only chocolate on a quarter of it) .

 

But once the chocolate melted and I started spreading it around, it seemed that I had enough to cover the whole thing! (I feel like I should take that exclamation point out, as it wasn't that exciting of an event)   Nah, chocolate should always be an event unto itself!

The brittle broke apart fine with
 a little persuasion from my knife. 








It looks nice enough as far as brittle goes.....but I'm still not a fan of brittle. 
I could have just eaten the toasted pumpkin seeds and have been happy.  Candy just isn't my thing. 

I could see making it and giving it out in little cellophane gift bags....if I were so inclined. 

But I think I would make the cookie brittle before I made this again, as cookies are my thing.  Mmm Hmm!  :o)







And so this ends today's session. (somebody get me a cookie, stat!)