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 Candy
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Heat the peanuts and salt together.
Make the candy
Put sugar in an iron pan over low flame and stir constantly until it turns light brown syrup.
Quickly add the chopped peanuts and salt, stirring them in.
Pour immediately into a hot buttered pan and divide into squares with a knife.
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.
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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
- Granulated sugar
- Melts and browns into a syrup that hardens into the brittle base.
- Chopped peanuts
- Add crunch and nutty flavor to the set candy.
The step that matters
Pour immediately into the hot buttered pan. Sugar syrup hardens quickly as it cools. Pouring it right away lets it spread thinly before it sets, and a cooled mixture becomes stiff and hard to spread or cut cleanly.
“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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