Wow! For those of you who put in 2 cups of peanuts, you must really like a lot of nuts!
I put in about 1 & 1/4 cups and stopped there.
I didn't even attempt the fork idea. I kept my cookie sheet warm in the oven while the candy was cooking. When I poured the mixture onto the warm pan, it stayed soft long enough for me to then tilt the pan to spread the candy out.
This recipe turns out great. I've made it several times. I use a digital candy thermometer for accuracy. It must reach 300-degrees F. to be crunchy. Baking soda adds an "easier bite" to the peanut brittle, causing it to break when less force is applied. It also causes the sugar base around the peanuts to be opaque. It does this by "foaming up" and introducing small bubbles in the sugar syrup. If you desire a clearer almost transparent sugar base around the peanuts and a "harder bite", reduce or omit the baking soda. If you use roasted peanuts instead of raw, be careful not heat the mixture above 300-degrees F. or the peanuts may taste burned. Roasted peanuts can also be added at the end of cooking to prevent burning. If you use salted peanuts, omit the salt in the recipe.
Great Brittle. A few tips: Be sure to have butter and baking soda measured out beforehand and waiting, (and butter softened) stir them in well to mix, but dont stir it to death. when it is foamy and pale, stir a few times more, and then stop. I doubled the recipe (a single recipie for a single household, double it to share with anyone) and used a half-sheet size (read: about 17"x13" with a lip on it about an inch tall. I covered the pan with extra-wide aluminum foil and buttered the foil, and the sides of the foil. As soon as you are done stirring the stuff in, pour it onto the foil, and spread it out. I did this by picking the pan up and kind a shaking it around. If you try to spread it around like frosting, you'll end up breaking all those beautiful little bubbles that make it crunchy but light. Have fun!
This is my first time making candy, and it was awesome!! I added the teaspoon of vanilla as suggested, and almost 2 cups of peanuts. The only thing I would do differently is less peanuts. My sis-in-law liked the extra peanuts. So of course, I think it depends on what you like more, the candy or the peanuts. Very easy. By the way, have a pot of BOILING water that you can place your utensils in immediately to help with clean up.
Fabulous! This stuff tastes just wonderful, and was very easy to make with very little cleanup afterwards. Since I live in a country where corn syrup is not available, I had to substitute light molasses for the corn syrup, which worked just fine.
A couple of suggestions--even though the amount of liquid is originally not very large, be sure you use a large pot since the extremely hot, sticky mixture foams up to many time its original size when the butter and baking soda are added. Also, don't dump out the mixture onto the cookie sheet in just one place and expect you'll be able to spread the peanuts around evenly afterwards--you'll crush all the bubbles. A better tactic would be to pour the mixture out onto the cookie sheet in a circular pattern so the peanuts are evenly distributed to begin with, then tilt the pan to get the liquid spread evenly.
I'd give this ten stars if I could! I made many batches of this and gave out for Christmas gifts and received RAVE reviews. You definitely have to have the ingredients ready to go while you are making this, but don't let that scare you off. Once you have done one or two batches, you definitely get a "feel" for the process. Here are a couple of notes that might help. First, USE A CANDY THERMOMETER. I can't imagine being successful without this. While stirring, the candy takes quite a little time to get to the desired temperature, and CONSTANT stirring is not necessary. But WATCH OUT...once it gets to around 250 degrees it RAPIDLY shoots up to the 300 degree temperature and you need to be right on top of it. I learned to let it stay at the 300 degree point for a bit to brown the candy and the peanuts. It gave it a GREAT flavor, but BE CAREFUL!!! Also, I added from one and a half to two cups of peanuts, and liked the consistency. This mlay well be an annual tradition!
This is the recipe my family has used for 30 years and always gets rave reviews. Certainly a candy thermometer would be helpful but we've never used one. I was taught to cook the syrup until the stir spoon held about two feet above the pot has a long thin thread going down to the pot - then stir in the peanuts and cook until the peanuts are tan. Mix in the rest in one quick motion and spread on WARM cookie sheets to help it spread.
Yummm.
LOVED IT! I took some of the advice from other reviewers and waited to add the peanuts at 250 deg.(Not one scortched peanut!), cooked it to 305 deg. and added 1 tsp vanilla. It was so easy! I also couldn't wait to try it so I popped it in the frezzer for about 20 min. until it cooled off.
This peanut brittle is delicious! It is fairly simple to make, even for a novice candy maker. I did change a few things as per other peoples suggestions. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar and 1/2 cup of brown sugar (which gave it a nice colour and taste) and I had dry roasted peanuts so I waited until my thermometer read 250 to add them. I added 1 tsp of vanilla when I added the butter and baking soda. Everyone was right, you do have to wait a while for it to get up to 250 but once it hits that it goes really fast. And you have to work fast at spreading it on the pan. I had my pan in the oven before hand as well to help. And to make it go even faster I put the pan outside in the cold air and it cooled in no time! I will definitly be making this again!
I followed directions exactly and the peanut brittle never hardened.
