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Peanut Brittle

A sweet brittle made with sugar and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Peanut Brittle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour the white sugar into a clean, hot skillet and allow it to melt, being careful not to let it burn.

  2. Prepare shallow pans by greasing them with butter and spreading the nut-meats in them.

  3. Once the sugar is browned, pour it over the nut-meats and let it cool.

  4. Break into small 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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Coffee + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,344 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + meattop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together173 recipes

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

  5. Coffee + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Melts and caramelizes into the brittle's hard, brittle candy base and gives it sweetness.
Nut-meats
Provide the crunchy, nutty bulk that the caramelized sugar binds around.

The step that matters

Melting the sugar without burning it. Sugar melts and then darkens quickly once it passes the golden stage. If it burns, the candy turns bitter and bitter flavor cannot be undone. Watching the color closely and removing it from heat at light amber keeps the flavor clean.

“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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