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Dessert

Peanut Brittle

A sweet brittle made from glucose, sugar, water, peanuts, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Brittle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine glucose, sugar, and water in a kettle; heat and stir until dissolved.

  2. Cook the mixture until it reaches 240°F (115°C).

Add peanuts and soda

  1. Add the peanuts and continue cooking until they are done and the mixture turns golden‑brown.

  2. Remove from heat, add baking soda, and stir well.

Shape and set

  1. Pour onto a greased slab and spread thin with a palette knife.

  2. Wearing gloves, stretch and spread the mixture with your hands.

  3. Once cool, break into pieces and place in trays.

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.

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. Sugar + peanuttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Glucose
Keeps the sugar from crystallising, giving a smooth, brittle texture.
Sugar
Provides the sweetness and forms the crisp, hard candy structure when cooled.
Spanish peanuts
Supply the nutty flavour and crunch in the finished brittle.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to create gas bubbles that lighten the brittle and make it crisp.

The step that matters

Remove from heat, add baking soda, and stir well. Baking soda reacts quickly with the hot sugar syrup, releasing gas that foams it up. It must be stirred in fast and evenly, or the brittle will be dense in some spots and flat in others.

“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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