Recipe: Peanut Brittle

Chocolate-drizzled peanut brittle – delicious!

When I was a kid, we used to go to a stall at the market and buy peanut brittle that was out of this world. Id’ never thought to make my own before now, but I suddenly got the urge and hunted everywhere for a recipe. Unfortunately, they all seemed to call for corn syrup – which we don’t have over here that I know of – and were all in finicky American measurements of cups (I just don’t get it – give me ounces or grams any day of the week!). Finally I found a recipe that used golden syrup and was in measurements I could understand at Grosse is a Geek.

Peanut Brittle

Serves: Not sure – depends how greedy you are!

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes (plus 30 minutes setting time)

Ingredients:

60g butter

180g sugar

1 tbsp water

200g golden syrup

200g salted peanuts

Directions:

1. Lightly grease a baking tray
2. Put butter, water and sugar in a saucepan and heart slowly, stirring al the time, till butter melts
3. Add golden syrup and continue to heat and stir till sugar dissolves
4. Boil slowly, stirring continually, till it is hot enough so that a drop of it in cold water turns hard
5. Add the peanuts and keep heating and stirring. The peanuts will have cooled it down, so test another drop in cold water. When it hardens in the water, it’s ready
6. Carefully pour into the baking tray and leave to harden for about 30 minutes
7. Break with a toffee hammer or with the handle of a heavy knife or with a spoon

The Verdict:

Oh. My. Word! This stuff is fantastic! I highly recommend trying this recipe if you’re a fan of peanut brittle as it’s absolutely gorgeous! DO use salted peanuts as it really adds to the flavour. And you might like to drizzle melted chocolate over it when it’s set too – I used dark chocolate and then stuck it in the fridge till it set before breaking it up and putting it in an airtight container (I’ve kept it in the fridge so the chocolate won’t melt again).

Make sure you wash your pan IMMEDIATELY in VERY HOT water when you’ve poured your toffee mixture into the baking tray or it will stick to your pan and never come off. I was a little worried about ruining a pan, but I washed it straight away and it was fine (I don’t have any non-stick pans – they’re all stainless steel and copper bottomed).

This is a definite 5/5 recipe and I will be making this time and time again, so I’m going to gain several stones in weight, I think, as well as losing all my lovely white teeth, but at least I’ll have the memory of this gorgeous peanut brittle when I’m fat and gummy!

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