When I was living in India, my dad would bring peanut and sesame seed brittle for me and my sisters and we used to love them.This is my first attempt to prepare a Brittle and when I tasted this brittle, though extremely tasty, it did not taste anything like what I was used to having. That was because I prepared this brittle using sugar, whereas the ones we get in India are mostly prepared with Jaggery (concentrated cane sugar which comes usually in the form of blocks). Very soon I will be uploading another instructable for a brittle using Jaggery :)

Step 1: Cutting and Cleaning Pumpkin and Pumpkin Seeds

For the preparation of this brittle i have used Sugar pumpkin. Any kind of pumpkin can be used to prepare brittle and this recipe can be followed for making any kind of brittle.

Wash the pumpkin very well
Cut the top of the pumpkin which holds the stem, chop the pumpkin in half
Scoop out all the seeds and membrane using a spoon
Once the seeds and membrane was removed from the pumpkin, I removed the membrane as much as possible by hand and then put the seeds with the membranes that are stuck to the seeds in a colander and gave it a thorough wash
Place paper towels on a plate and spread the seeds so the water can evaporate
I let the seeds dry overnight so i can be sure that the seeds have no moisture left

Step 2: Roasting Pumpkin Seeds

Take a wide base pan, spread the dried pumpkin seeds on the pan
On low to medium heat, dry roast the seeds till you get nice aroma and the seeds swell a little. This took 4 - 5 minutes
Remove the seeds and place on a plate to cool down

Step 3: Ingredients Required to Prepare Pumpkin Seed Brittle

Pumpkin Seeds - 3/4 up
Sugar - 1 cup
Unsalted butter - 2 tbsp
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Water - 1/4 cup
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Vanilla Essence - 1 tbsp

Step 4: Steps to Prepare Pumpkin Seed Brittle

On a cookie sheet, place parchment paper and spray it very evenly with cooking spray
Take a large heavy pan and put sugar and water and let it come to a complete boil
Add salt and butter and keep stirring and let it cook till the temperature reaches 300 F
Remove from flame, add vanilla essence and mix
Add baking soda and the mixture will bubble up ferociously, keep stirring
Add the pumpkin seeds and mix well
Pour the mixture on the cookie tray placed with parchment paper and spread it immediately to get a flat base. To make it super flat, i sprayed another parchment paper with cooking spray and placed this parchment paper on top of the mixture. I then placed a flat based pan on top of the parchment paper and pressed it,to get a flat thin brittle
Let it cool for 30 minutes
Remove the parchment paper and break the brittle as needed. Store in airtight container. Done :)
In case the parchment paper gets stuck to the brittle, which should not happen if the paper was sprayed generously with cooking spray,dip a kitchen towel in hot water and squeeze out the water well and place the towel on the part of the brittle,which is stuck to the parchment paper for 2-3 minutes and the paper will come out easily