I’d always made brittle with water and sugar as the base of the recipe but as I pulled ingredients from the pantry, JC started the recipe by sprinkling the coating of sugar on the bottom of a heavy saucepan. Huh? (I was later told by a friend that this is the same method for flan but since I avoid making all foods with mucus-like texture, I am devoid of flan knowledge.)

I watched as JC’s methodical – dare I say it? tantric – stirring spun sugar into gold as the grains melted into a caramel goo. As the sugar melted, he continued to sprinkle in more, until he had two cups of caramalized deliciousness in the pan. Keeping the pan over the heat, we stirred in the walnuts we’d coated in blue cheese earlier and rolled the whole thing out to cool. The final touch, which we didn’t figure out until the second try, was to sprinkle the top of the brittle with coarse sea salt when it was rolled out but just a little bit sticky to create glassy, textured crystal’s on the brittle’s surface.

The result? We think its delicious (in particular because of a secret ingredient) but you’ll have to wait till the book comes out to find out for yourself.