Why it works: Sugar and peanut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 27% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,545 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Peanut Crisp
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 240°F (115°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the syrup
Combine sugar, glucose, and water in a large pot.
Cook until the mixture reaches 240°F (115°C).
Add the nuts and finish
Add the blanched peanuts.
Cook until the nuts are done.
Stir in a pinch of salt.
Remove from heat and add the baking soda. Stir well.
Pour the mixture onto a slab.
Shape and stretch
Work it into a pile using a cream spadle. Continue working the mixture until you can form it into a loaf.
Cut off about 2 lbs at a time.
Roll it out as thin as possible with a wooden rolling pin. Turn over the piece. Stretch it thin.
Repeat until all the mixture is used.
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.
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.
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Sugar + peanuttop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,545 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Provides the bulk of the sweet, crisp brittle structure as it cooks to a hard candy.
- Glucose
- Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the brittle smooth and preventing grainy texture.
- Blanched peanuts
- Supply the nut flavor and crunchy body throughout the brittle.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the hot syrup to release gas, aerating the candy so it becomes light and brittle.
The step that matters
Remove from heat and add the baking soda. Baking soda must be added off the heat and stirred in quickly, since it foams vigorously on contact with hot syrup. Delay or uneven mixing leaves dense pockets or a flat texture.
“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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