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Dessert

Peanut Crisp

A sweet, crisp confection made from sugar, peanuts, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 Crisp

Ingredients

Directions

Make the peanut mixture

  1. Combine sugar and a little water in a kettle.

  2. Set the kettle on a brisk fire.

  3. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  4. Cook until the mixture reaches a soft ball stage.

  5. Add the peanuts.

  6. Cook until the peanuts are well roasted.

  7. Remove the mixture from heat.

  8. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda.

Spread and shape

  1. Pour the mixture onto a greased marble surface.

  2. Spread the mixture very thin.

  3. Turn the mixture upside down as it begins to cool.

  4. Pull the mixture thin.

  5. Cut or break into pieces.

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

Sugar
Forms the brittle base and caramelizes to give the crisp, sweet body.
Spanish peanuts
Provide the main body, nutty flavor and crunch once roasted in the syrup.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to release gas, lightening the brittle and making it easier to pull thin.

The step that matters

Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. Added off the heat, it foams vigorously when it meets the hot sugar. Adding it over direct heat or too early can cause the mixture to boil over or deflate, so it should be stirred in quickly and evenly.

“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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