Why it works: Peanut and sugar 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
Break or chop the peanuts into pieces.
Grease a pan and line it with the peanuts.
Make and set the brittle
Heat the sugar in a saucepan until it becomes a thin, light brown syrup, stirring constantly.
Pour the syrup over the peanuts and mark into squares.
Once cooled, break into pieces.
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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Peanut + sugartop 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
- Peanuts
- Form the crunchy body and nutty flavour of the brittle.
- Sugar
- Melts into a syrup that hardens on cooling, binding the peanuts together.
The step that matters
Heating the sugar to a light brown syrup. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to caramelise, so it can turn bitter or burn if left unattended. Stirring keeps the heat even, and stopping at a thin, light brown colour keeps the flavour sweet and the brittle from setting too dark or too hard to enjoy.
“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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