sweetdragon baking company

Brittle

$16.00

Sale Sold out

variety Black Sesame Coconut Cashew Vegan Burnt Almond Pistachio Vanilla Serrano Peanut

Quantity

"The brittle, which looked like an extra thick sheet of nori, resembled a goth girl: forbidding on the outside, sweet and nutty once we got to know it. Once stirred into a bubbling mass of sugar and butter, the unshelled sesame seeds took on a cocoa-nib quality, deep and rich, just shy of savory. The thousands of seeds and their hardened-toffee casing crunched in the mouth like a piece of feuilletine, or perhaps a rustic halvah." Jonathan Kauffman, SFoodie, March 15, 2011.

Good Food Award Winner

Ingredients: black sesame seeds, butter, cane sugar, organic molasses, organic cider vinegar, salt, baking soda

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Sweetdragon Baking Company

Hway-ling Hsu founded Sweetdragon Baking Company with the intention of making pies, but the business took an unexpected turn when the owners of a food truck asked her to create peanut brittle for them to sell. Although she was initially unenthusiastic about the idea, she decided to give it a try.

Having never made candy before, Hway-ling studied recipes, candy-making books, and YouTube videos. She wanted to create a brittle with a generous amount of nuts and a texture that was crisp, easy to bite, and not overly sticky or sweet. After researching candy chemistry, consulting a Ph.D. chemical engineer, and experimenting through many failed batches, she eventually developed recipes that met her flavor and texture goals.

Through this process, Hway-ling learned that excellent candy depends on excellent ingredients. She sources many ingredients from local farmers’ markets and small specialty vendors, and carefully packages the brittle in resealable bags with desiccant packs to protect it from moisture and preserve its texture.

One of her earliest flavors was black sesame brittle, inspired by her grandmother, who rarely ate sweets except for homemade black sesame-filled buns. In 2013, the black sesame brittle received a Good Food Award—a tribute Hway-ling gratefully shares with her grandmother.