I’ve been meaning to share this peanut brittle recipe forever, because it’s one of the easiest candies you can make, and everyone seems to love it. I’ve also been meaning to post a Valentine’s Day recipe … and don’t you just love when you can do two things at once?
This recipe takes little time and few ingredients. What’s not to love about that?
Ingredients
- 2 cups raw Spanish peanuts
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup corn syrup
- 1 TBSP butter
- 1 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- TO PREPARE:
- Before you do anything else, prepare a baking sheet by lining with foil and spraying with a vegetable spray. If you have a silicone sheet that fits your baking sheet, use that. You won't need to spray the silicone. It's important to have this prepared ahead of time because this goes fast at the end.
- If you're going to make hearts like I did, spray the inside edge of your heart cutter (I used 2 pancake molds I got at Ross for $2.99. But you can use a cookie cutter or a silicone mold as well.)
- TO COOK:
- Put the first four ingredients in a medium saucepan and begin cooking over medium-high heat, stirring often.
- Cook 16-20 minutes, depending on how fast it takes to get a nice, golden brown color. You don't want the mixture to burn, so watch it carefully and err on the side of less time rather than more. On my gas stove, 17 minutes is perfect for a batch of brittle.
- Add the 1 tsp of baking soda and stir like crazy for just a few seconds -- just long enough to incorporate the baking soda into the mix. This will foam up nicely, which is what you want.
- Quickly pour the brittle onto your prepared baking sheet and/or the heart molds. Spread slightly, but leave as foamy as you can.
- Set aside for about 20 minutes or until cool enough to break into pieces.
- When cooled and hardened, store in an air-tight container.
If you’ve never bought raw Spanish peanuts before, here’s what they look like. It’s important that they be raw, because you’re going to cook them in the brittle mixture, and if you start with roasted peanuts, they’ll taste burnt.
Here’s what the brittle looks like when it reaches the “golden brown” stage.
And this is what it looks like when you’ve added the baking soda:
It looks pale and less appealing than it did before, but just wait. Once it hardens and cools, you’ll be happy.
I wanted to leave room for my two heart molds, so I put half the brittle on my silicone sheet and half on a foil-lined pan.
These are the pancake molds I used. They have a handle on one side that makes removing them very easy.
Once they’ve cooled enough to hold their shape, you can remove the mold.
My heart is in your hand. Well, technically, your heart is in my hand.
If you don’t want to make these in a heart shape but you do want to give them for Valentine’s Day, just break, bag, and label with a Valentine’s message.
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Can you put peanut brittle mixture into silicone molds or is it to hot? I see that it can go on the silicone mats but I wanted to make some fun shapes for my holiday cookie plater.
Jenny, I’m so sorry you had to wait! I have spent the last nine months diving in to a new career and everything else in my life came to a halt. I have not made them in molds, but I believe it would work. Just to be safe, I’d probably hit the molds with a light dash of cooking spray. If you DO make these in molds … you know, next Christmas 🙂 … please come back and tell me how it worked!