Pecan Butter Crunch is the kind of old-fashioned candy that earns its place in a holiday tin by keeping the ingredient list short and the payoff big. Pecans are toasted first, then covered with a thin stream of butter-rich sugar syrup cooked all the way to hard-crack stage.
Once cooled, the candy is broken into irregular pieces rather than cut into perfect squares, so every shard has a slightly different balance of toasted pecan and crisp caramelized crunch. The printed memorial attribution gives this recipe extra meaning in the archive, but the candy itself stands on its own as a simple, giftable holiday classic.
Pecan Butter Crunch
Ingredients
- 1½ c. pecans
- 1¾ c. butter
- 3 Tbsp. water
- 1 Tbsp. light corn syrup
- 1½ c. sugar
Instructions
- Toast pecans at 300° on baking sheet until light brown. Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar, corn syrup, and water. Cook to hard-crack stage (no stirring) or 290°. Pour in thin stream over nuts on baking sheet. Cool. Break in pieces.
Notes
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