Homemade Snickers
The Recipe
Ingredients
Chocolate of your choice, milk or dark
For the Caramel:
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1 cup + 2 tbsp heavy cream
5 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla
a bunch of crushed peanuts (if you’re not allergic), preferably roasted at home, and definitely lightly salted
For the Nougat:
100 g honey
120 g white sugar
50 g water
20 g light corn syrup
20 g egg whites
5 g sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
pinch of salt
Method
For the Caramel:
Grease and line some sort of pan with parchment. I used a loaf pan with straight sides. Sprinkle as many crushed peanuts as you want into the bottom of the pan.
Combine sugar, corn syrup, and water in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves.
Turn up the heat and bring to a boil, washing down sides as needed with a wet pastry brush.
Meanwhile, warm the heavy cream and melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat.
When the sugar solution turns a deep amber, stream in the heavy cream and butter, stirring constantly to avoid things getting weird. Stir in vanilla.
Clip a candy thermometer to the sides of the pot. Cook the mixture until it reaches 250º F.
When the mixture comes to temp, remove from heat and pour over crushed peanuts. Sprinkle some sea salt over it if you would like the caramel to have a little more kick! Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
For the Nougat:
Take a deep breath because this is the part that sucks. Watch your temps and keep your timing in check! I ordered things the way they worked best for me, but you’re not in my kitchen using my (arguably terrible) stove, so your mileage may vary. It took me three tries to get this right. Good luck.
Combine the sugar, water, and light corn syrup in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to 280º F. It will stall in the 250s and then may spike, so keep an eye on it.
Pour the honey into a small saucepan and clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot. Bring to 250º F, then set aside to cool a little bit.
When the sugar solution is about to come to temp, whip the egg whites in a stand mixer. Sprinkle in the salt and sugar, the whip to firm peaks.
While whipping egg whites, stream in hot honey, then stream in the sugar solution.
Continue whipping at a low speed until mixture reaches about 140º F, then beat in peanut butter.
Spread the nougat over the caramel layer, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until set.
Bring it all together!
Place a wire rack over a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil.
Turn out the caramel and nougat onto a clean work surface.
Using a large knife, carefully cut the slab down to whatever size (or shape) you would like them to be, spraying the knife with cooking spray if things get sticky. Place in freezer while you…
Melt the chocolate in whatever way you see fit, either with a double boiler setup or in the microwave (20 second intervals, stirring between each time). Just make sure it doesn’t scorch or burn! Don’t worry about tempering it, because I didn’t and they turned out fine. Don’t tell Chris Morocco.
Place pieces of filling on the wire rack. It doesn’t REALLY matter which side is up (mine are upside down), but traditionally the caramel is on top. Pour chocolate over pieces, tapping the baking sheet on your counter to pop any bubbles and help the chocolate cover everything completely.
Chill to set, but make sure you serve them at room temperature so you don’t break your teeth.
The Story
Not to be dramatic, but I would die for Claire Saffitz from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen.
When I first discovered Gourmet Makes early last year, I immediately fell in love with her charm, perseverance, and talent. Her delicate mix of enthusiasm and reluctance to go on is something I connected with immediately.
I can say with complete confidence that she has inspired me to cook again.
As much as I would like to cook and bake through the entirety of the Gourmet Makes series, I don’t have the time, money, or energy to do that right now. It’s on my bucket list, though.
Anyway, I got stupidly inspired to make Snickers right before Christmas last year. It wasn’t until mid January that I was finally able to complete them. This recipe is based on Claire’s from the show, but I made a few tweaks since I found her spoken recipe at the end to be a bit lacking.
It was a bit of a rocky start, since I’ve never really done anything with cooked sugar before. My first nougat was pretty much marshmallow, and my second was rock hard because I didn’t time my mixtures right. My third and final nougat was just right. My first caramel was too runny (ended up as a dip for apples), but my second turned out wonderful!
The next issue arose when I damn near cut my thumb off because the knife I was using to cut the squares out got too slippery from the cooking spray. Like, job well done to the cooking spray for making things less sticky, but like…really?
My dumb ass also doubled the recipe and I ended up with four freakin pounds of these things! Thankfully they did all get eaten, but it was pretty daunting when I realized just how much I had made. This recipe yields about two pounds of Snickers, depending on how heavily you enrobe them in chocolate.
All in all, I had a lot of fun making these and I am super excited to continue making more treats from Gourmet Makes, and apparently writing this blog.
