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Dessert

Peanut Brittle

A sweet brittle made with sugar, peanuts, maple syrup, cream, nuts, brown sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Peanut and meat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 119 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, peanut, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Put sugar in a perfectly smooth granite sauce pan.

  2. Use a very low flame, stir constantly until all the sugar has formed into a syrup.

  3. The syrup should be a light amber color.

  4. Stir the chopped peanuts into the syrup.

  5. Pour onto a buttered plate.

Cook and shape

  1. Boil the first three ingredients until a soft ball may be formed when tested in cold water.

  2. Remove from heat and beat until a creamy consistency.

  3. Add the nuts.

  4. Drop spoonfuls onto buttered paper.

  5. Boil.

  6. Add nuts and vanilla.

  7. Beat until creamy and stiff.

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Peanut + meattop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Peanut + nutstop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Forms the syrup that hardens into the brittle's crisp, sweet body.
Peanuts
Add crunch and nutty flavor to the brittle.
Maple syrup
Adds sweetness and a distinct caramel-like aroma.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the texture of the candy.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavor and a smoother bite.

The step that matters

Cook to the soft-ball stage. Sugar syrup set by cold water shows how much water has boiled off. Cooking too little leaves the candy soft and sticky, while cooking too far makes it hard and brittle to the point of breaking teeth. Testing in cold water guides the right stopping point.

“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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