Peanut Brittle

  • Level: Intermediate
  • Yield: 4 cups
  • Total: 1 hr
  • Prep: 10 min
  • Inactive: 30 min
  • Cook: 20 min
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Ingredients

1 1/2 cups lightly salted, roasted peanuts

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups water

Vegetable oil, for coating the saucepan

Softened butter for spatula

Directions

  1. In a small bowl combine peanuts, cinnamon, and cayenne. Set aside.
  2. Brush the inside of a medium sized heavy saucepan with vegetable oil. Add the sugar and water to the saucepan, cook over high heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon, until it comes to a boil. Stop stirring, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Uncover, reduce heat to medium, and cook until the sugar is a light amber color. Stir in peanuts. This will greatly reduce the temperature of the sugar so work quickly. Once evenly mixed, pour mixture onto a sheet pan lined with a silicone baking mat or buttered parchment paper. Using a buttered spatula, spread thin. You will have to work quickly when pouring out and spreading the mixture in the pan. If necessary, in order to achieve single layer of peanuts, top with second sheet pan whose underside has been buttered. Cool completely and then break into pieces.

Let's Get Cooking!

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Anonymous

If you're simply looking to make glass out of sugar this is the recipe for you. Look at how the pros do it before making this recipe. They mix in sodium bicarbonate while cooling to make millions of little bubbles so it's easy to break with the teeth. It's NOT supposed to be transparent like glass, and not as hard either. You don't have to worry about crystallization if you'll simply add a bit of corn syrup before heating. It achieves the same phenomenon of "dissimilar molecules" at a lower temperature than that required to break down sucrose. AND you should use RAW peanuts and cook them in the sugar mixture, that way the sugar takes on a peanut flavor. Do yourself a favor!

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