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Peanut Candy

A brittle candy made by boiling molasses and sugar, then adding peanuts and setting into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Peanut Candy

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peanut Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brittle

  1. Boil the molasses and sugar together until brittle, testing by dropping a drop in cold water.

  2. Stir in the peanuts before removing from heat.

Set and mark

  1. Pour into buttered pans and mark into squares or lengths before it cools.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Peanut + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Peanut + molassestop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Peanuts
Provide the crunchy texture and nutty flavour that the hard sugar matrix holds.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour and colour, and contributes to the hard, brittle set of the candy.
Sugar
Forms the hard, brittle candy structure when boiled to a high temperature.

The step that matters

Boil until brittle. The mixture must reach the hard-crack stage so it sets firm and snaps when cool. Stopping early leaves it sticky, while overcooking can scorch it and make it bitter.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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