Peanut Brittle

So the holiday season is a little hard to ignore these days, and all afternoon we've been talking about putting up the tree and putting up some lights to make the house a tad festive for the holidays.  

While I'm not the sort of gal who goes around wearing jingle bell earrings and humming " Little Drummer Boy", I sure do love flashy Christmas lights and buying presents for people...

  

And then there's the holiday baking. Having been a commercial baker for my entire adult life, the prospect of making a few truckloads of cookies, fudge, candies and confections for my beloved family and friends is a lot of fun for me. 

The idea is for the next few weeks before Santa comes begging for some midnight  snacks is to give you all a bunch of my tried and true holiday recipes for cookies and candies. I thought a good one to start with would be my all-time favorite, the (not-so) classic Peanut Brittle.

* You will need a candy thermometer for this recipe.

Peanut Brittle

- 2 cups sugar

-1 cup brown rice syrup

-1/2 cup water

-1/4 cup butter

-2 1/2 cups raw peanuts

-1 1/2 t. baking soda, sifted. 

Directions: Butter two large baking sheets. Smear butter on the sides of a heavy saucepan. In saucepan, combine sugar, brown rice syrup, water and butter. Cook on medium high until mixture boils, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to dissolve sugar. This should take about 5 minutes. Clip candy thermometer to side of pan. Cook until candy thermometer registers 275 degrees ( soft crack stage as most thermometers say). this should take about 30-35 minutes. Stir in nuts, and continue to cook until thermometer registers 295 degrees, (hard crack stage) this should take another 15-20 minutes. Remove pan from heat and remove thermometer. Sprinkle baking soda over mixture, stirring constantly.  Immediately pour mixture onto sheets, you can stretch candy to sides gently using a wooden spoon or two forks to pull. Avoid tearing. Cook completely, and then tap with a butter knife to crack. Store tightly covered. 

 

crunchy, sweet deliciousness. 

I do  believe I weep with joy every December when I make my first batch of Peanut Brittle, I love that much.  It also makes  a beautiful gift for someone too, because it's such a classic Holiday treat. It's also a bit putsy to make, so it shows someone you like them enough to share your hard-won deliciousness  with them.

 I call this the "Not-so" Classic Peanut Brittle because most classic recipes call for corn syrup 

(generally genetically modified), which I replace with brown rice syrup because it's actually food, and it's always turned out great. This recipe takes a bit of your time, but it's well worth it to have homemade Peanut Brittle on your holiday cookie platter!