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
Remove the brown skin from the peanuts and grind them finely.
Make the brittle
In a frying pan, heat the sugar over medium heat, stirring constantly until it melts into a syrup.
Add the ground peanuts to the syrup and mix thoroughly.
Quickly pour the mixture into an unbuttered shallow pan.
Before it hardens, use a knife to mark the mixture into squares.
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
- Provide the main body, flavour and crunch of the brittle.
- Sugar
- Melts into a syrup that sets hard as it cools, binding the peanuts together.
The step that matters
Pour and mark before it hardens. Once the sugar syrup cools it sets quickly into a brittle glass-like solid. Pouring promptly lets it spread thinly, and marking squares early, while it is still pliable, is the only point at which clean cuts are possible.
“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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