I suppose this might be a big indicator of my age, but if you don’t know about Rain forest Crunch, it was a butter crunch candy made by a company called Community Products, Inc. sometime around the late 80s and into the 90s. It was made with cashews and Brazil nuts and some of the profits were to try to curb rain forest destruction. Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream also had a flavor called Rain Forest Crunch that used the candy in it. I was a small child but I remember absolutely loving it. As a result, I have decided to recreate my own version of it.
I have decided to add macadamia nuts to it, because I like them and they seem to go well with cashews and Brazil nuts. I also thought I’d sprinkle a little Hawaiian Red Salt on top to stick with the tropical theme.
My first batch was too similar to brittle, and so it was too crisp for my liking. I wanted something that crunched, but was not really hard like glass. That is a characteristic of brittle, which has significantly more sugar than butter. A crunch candy has a more even ratio of sugar to butter and thus a crunch without a snap.
My second go resulted in the butter and sugar breaking after I removed them from the heat, but still it had the mouth feel I was going for. Stay tuned for my final result…