Persian Pistachio Brittle

Persian Pistachio Brittle is a clever, fast, and easy recipe for a decadent toffee treat.  It is made with butter, brown sugar, soda crackers/Saltine crackers, and a hint of Persian saffron.  The result is an addictive, salty-sweet, crunchy snack.  Satisfy cravings for an old classic Persian treat called “sohan” in 15 minutes from start to finish.

Sohan is the Farsi word for a delightfully rich and decadent brittle or toffee.  In the traditional recipes for sohan, you need a couple of different kinds of flour, as well as some form of sugar such as honey, liquid glucose, or corn syrup.  The flavorings in a real sohan include of course saffron, but also some cardamom and a bit of rose water.  I prefer making caramel sauce and toffees with brown sugar for deeper flavor.  Keeping this modern recipe fast and simple, I use brown sugar for the sweetener, and saffron for unique, Persian flavor notes.

You honestly won’t believe how simple the steps are for making this irresistible toffee treat!  With a few basic ingredients, a pot, a sheet pan, and an oven, you can make “fake sohan”, also known as pistachio brittle any day of the week.  Dress it up with fancy green pistachio slivers and some royal rose petals and its nice enough to put out for guests or take to a party.

Steps:

• Arrange the soda crackers/Saltines in a single layer, neatly and evenly in rows on the lined, greased baking sheet
• Melt butter with brown sugar until the liquid comes to a boil, stirring constantly
• Drizzle the warm caramelized sugar syrup carefully and evenly over the crackers on the baking sheet
• Bake in the oven for 5 minutes
• Top with green-skinned, slivered pistachios

This is a versatile recipe.  Serve the cracker brittle plain, resembling sohan, or for the chocolate lovers in your life, add a layer of chocolate!  There is one more step needed to make a chocolate version.  Take a couple of handfuls of your favorite chocolate chips (we use semi-sweet chocolate chips) and sprinkle over the warm crackers and caramel sauce right after the baking step.  The chocolate chips will soften quickly and will be easy to spread with a butter knife.

For the very last step, add slivered green pistachios.  

Allow the toffee crackers to cool and transfer to a serving plate.

For a more authentic sohan flavor, add a few drops of rose water and a little ground cardamom into the caramel mixture along with the bloomed saffron.  The Persian flavors of rose, cardamom, and saffron will elevate this basic toffee to a dessert fit for the kings!

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