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Dessert

Peanut Brittle

A hard candy made from sugar, water, glucose, butter, peanuts, vanilla, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 346 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Peanut Brittle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar, water, and glucose in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then wash down the sides with a damp cloth.

  3. Cover and boil for 3 to 4 minutes.

  4. Uncover and cook until the mixture reaches 275°F (135°C).

Add the peanuts and leavening

  1. Add butter and peanuts, stirring constantly until the peanuts are browned.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in cold water, add vanilla, and stir vigorously.

  3. When the candy stops foaming, pour it onto a warm, oiled marble surface.

Pull and finish

  1. Once cooled slightly at the edges, pull the candy as thin as possible.

  2. Loosen the center with a spatula, flip it over, and pull it thin again.

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. Corn + peanuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together346 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Peanut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the crisp, brittle candy structure as the syrup cooks and hardens.
Glucose (pure corn syrup)
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the brittle smooth rather than grainy.
Raw shelled peanuts
Provide the nutty body and, as they brown, add roasted flavor and crunch.
Baking soda
Reacts with the hot syrup to release gas, creating a light, airy, foamy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a softer mouthfeel to the candy.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda must be stirred in quickly once the syrup is hot, because it releases gas that makes the candy foam and turn light and porous. If it is added too slowly or the candy has cooled, the brittle stays dense.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, syrup, butter, vanilla):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, syrup, butter, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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