One woman’s bid to replicate the old-fashioned nut brittle of her American youth has landed her a faithful Kiwi following and a thriving small-batch confectionary business.

Words: Claire Finlayson  Photos: Kirsty Middleton

It was the glass thermometer’s fault. If it hadn’t slid provocatively from its neglected spot at the back of the cutlery drawer one day in 2018, Kimberly Bell might never have ended up at the helm of an award-winning artisan candy business. “I’m not particularly spiritual or superstitious, but it sparked something in me.”

Let’s back up a bit to understand why this humble heat-measuring device had such talismanic import. “I was always curious and adventurous in the kitchen. I told my mom that I might try making candy one day so she bought me a glass thermometer.”

Kimberly moved from her native California to Christchurch in 2012 to be with her now-husband Paul Rattray, and she tucked that unused thermometer into her suitcase.

When her mother died suddenly in 2017, she was swallowed by grief and looking for something to focus her swirling thoughts on. With the thermometer waving at her from the drawer, she decided to have a crack at making one of her favourite childhood treats: peanut brittle.

This moreish confection is so popular in the United States there’s even a National Peanut Brittle Day. Because Kimberly couldn’t find anything of equivalent taste and texture in New Zealand, her mother would always pop some into the care packages she sent from California.

“American brittle recipes have a tenderising agent in them, so they’re not as hard. There was a very specific flavour base that I was chasing.”

It took Kimberly nine months to nail the optimal salty-sweet ratio. “I was making a couple of batches a week. The unfortunate/fortunate part is that when you make candy, you can’t just make a little bit.”

Paul was a valiant and appreciative taste-tester, but there’s only so much brittle one man can manage. Friends and neighbours were willing to step into the treat-scoffing breach, though, and their exuberant feedback prompted Kimberly to turn a personal brittle quest into a small business: Kimbella’s Candy. (“Kimbella” was the nickname her mother gave her).

Kimberly’s brittle, launched in 2019, was an instant hit at farmers’ markets and soon secured a retail spot at Christchurch’s Riverside Market. The subsequent increase in production was too much for one pair of hands in a tiny 1930s home kitchen.

“I’d be in there cooking with four pots on one stove non-stop for nine hours a day, five days a week. It was full-on. Our spare room was set up as our ingredients storage and packing area.

“When Paul came home from work, he’d go in there with our daughter and they’d pack the candy because I would be spent.”

So she moved her operation to a commercial kitchen and bought two new stoves (both are duplicates of her home model so as not to risk wobbling all that hard-earned brittle magic). She also has a new head cook: Paul.

“He was made redundant during the first Covid lockdown, so it was a silver lining that he could come on board because I was drowning in production. We now cook 20 pots a day.” (Each pot yields 15 bags of brittle.)

They use minimal mechanical equipment — just calibrated scales and a heat seal machine. “We like being in control from the beginning to the end — our eyes are always on the candy. You lose a bit of that connection with your product when you turn it over to a machine. There’s a lot of instinct involved. You have to look at the colour as well as the temperature to decide when you’re going to stir it. Our technique is just old-fashioned cooking.”

Once peak caramel alchemy is achieved and nuts are added, the molten mix is poured onto baking trays and left to cool. When sufficiently hardened, it’s hand-cracked into rustic chunks. The duo currently make five flavours (peanut, cashew, almond, macadamia, and american buttercrunch) and have racked up nine Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards — three for every year they’ve entered. Kimberly attributes some of her brittle’s success to this country’s superior butter. “New Zealand butter is the star. There’s a lovely silken quality and a sweet richness to it — I think it makes a better caramel.”

Given the couple’s keenness to keep their “eyes on the pot”, they have no plans to upscale production. They’re happy selling their products at Riverside Market, expos, food shows, farmers’ markets and via their website, as well as filling orders for stockists nationwide. What they do want to grow is their customer contact time — especially in the North Island. “The downside to making the candy is that it’s quite solitary. We both like getting in front of our customers, giving them samples, hearing their feedback.”

Asked what her encouraging Californian mom would have made of the sweet success that glass thermometer prompted in a city 11,000 kilometres away, Kimberly says, “She had an unwavering belief in my capacity to do extraordinary things. She would have been ridiculously, embarrassingly thrilled.”

BAKING SODA ACCIDENT OR FLOOD PROTECTION?

It’s thought that peanut brittle originated in the southern states of the United States in the late 19th century. One story is that a New England woman accidentally invented it while trying to make taffy. The chewy candy she aimed for was thwarted when she mistakenly added baking soda instead of cream of tartar. Not wanting to be wasteful, she continued cooking, threw some peanuts in for good measure and arrived at a much harder confection. Others credit folklore hero and giant lumberjack Tony Beaver, who reportedly saved a west Virginian village from flooding by pouring jumbo-sized peanuts and molasses into its rapidly rising river. It hardened into a tasty candy dam which Beaver chopped into pieces with his giant axe and shared among the villagers. kimbellascandy.com

Kimberly’s Caramel Espresso Martini

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons caramel sauce (homemade or store bought), plus more for garnish
Kimbella’s Old Fashioned Almond Brittle, crushed
80ml hot espresso
50ml coffee liqueur
100ml vodka

METHOD

Rim 2 glasses with caramel sauce and roll/dip in the crushed almond brittle. Refrigerate to set.

Mix two tablespoons of caramel sauce with hot espresso until melted and leave to chill. Once cool, mix/shake together the espresso caramel mix, coffee liqueur and vodka and pour into the prepared glasses.

Garnish with finely crushed almond brittle. Makes 2 cocktails

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