Dark Chocolate Buttercrunch

By SewingDragonfly

From KAF

This recipe requires few ingredients and little effort, but the result is superb, making it appear you slaved over a hot stove all afternoon. What’s more, this candy is so rich that a few pieces go a long way, making it ideal for holiday gift bags. Add it to an assortment of other candies, cookies, or bars, and it’s probably good for 8-10 gifts.

For those of you unfamiliar with butter crunch, it’s a lot like a Heath Bar. And, like a Heath Bar, it’s delicious crunched up and stirred into ice cream, or mixed into whipped cream and spread between layers of a chocolate cake.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups (10 1/2oz) sugar
• 3 T water
• 1 T light corn syrup
• 2 cups diced pecans or slivered almonds, toasted
• 1 pound semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (chocolate chips are an easy solution here; you’ll need about 2 2/3 cups)

Preparation

Step 1

In a large, deep saucepan, melt the butter. Stir in the sugar, water and corn syrup, and bring the mixture to a boil. Boil gently, over medium heat, until the mixture reaches 300 degrees on an instant read or candy thermometer. The syrup will bubble without seeming to change much for a while, but be patient; all of a sudden it will darken, and at that point you need to take its temperature and see if it’s ready. Pay attention; too long on the heat , and the syrup will burn.

While the sugar mixture is gently bubbling, spread half of the nuts, in a fairly closely packed, even single layer, on a lightly greased baking sheet. Top with half the chocolate. When the syrup is ready, pour it quickly and evenly over the nuts and chocolate. Immediately top with the remaining chocolate, then the remaining nuts. Wait several minutes, then gently, using the back of a spatula, press down on the chocolate nut layer to spread the chocolate around evenly.