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
Prepare
Melt the sugar gradually over a slow fire in a large shallow frying pan, stirring constantly until it caramelizes.
Butter a marble slab or large platter and spread the shelled and skinned peanuts over it.
Set and break
Pour the hot syrup over the peanuts, or mix the peanuts with the syrup before pouring it out on the slab.
Once hard, break into small pieces using the handle of 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.
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
- Caramelizes and hardens as it cools, giving the brittle its crisp structure and sweetness.
- Peanuts
- Add crunch and a nutty, roasted flavor that sits within the hardened sugar.
The step that matters
Melting and stirring the sugar. Sugar melts unevenly over heat and can scorch quickly once it turns from golden to dark. Constant stirring spreads the heat, so the sugar caramelizes evenly without burning, which would make the brittle bitter.
“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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