This is one of my favorite recipes from Grandma. Her peanut brittle is like nothing you’ve ever had…tender, light and melts in your mouth. I’ve made it many times for my friends and they all agree its the best brittle recipe they’ve ever tried.
You can substitute almonds, cashews, walnuts or pecans instead of the peanuts, but you have to make sure they are raw. If they are already roasted they will burn before the brittle is ready to dump.
As with all candy recipes using sugar syrup, have all your ingredients ready BEFORE you start. You can’t go grab the rest of your ingredients out of the cabinet when you’re syrup is at temperature or you’ll be very sorry and end up with a burnt mess. A tip from Grandma is that you run your baking soda through a sieve to get rid of any lumps (you can measure it into a bowl and mash it good with a spoon to do the same thing).
Also, Grandma always reminded me….don’t burn yourself.
Grandma Furnish’s Original Peanut Brittle
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cup white corn syrup
- 1/2 cup water
Cook these ingredients to a hard ball. Then add:
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 pound raw peanuts
- dash salt
Cook and stir until it turns light brown (golden). Remove from fire, add the following:
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 tsp baking soda
Quickly stir and pour on the 2 buttered cookie sheets. As soon as you can touch the edges, stretch the candy as thin as you can using two forks (assistance is best here…get a friend to help). I usually butter the table around the cookie sheets to give me more room to work in the spreading.
-fin-
I’ve been playing with this recipe and have a great shortcut method to do this. You can make it either way, but the end directions are the same… to make yours just like hers!
Grandma Furnish’s Quick Peanut Brittle
This makes half of her original recipe. But it’s so quick you can make a couple batches in the time you’d cook one on the stove top. And you should use already cooked nuts in this version as they won’t spend a lot of time in the hot candy syrup, so they won’t burn. You should try party or cocktail mix nuts for ultra lux brittle!
- 1 cup nuts
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup white corn syrup
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp butter
- 1 tsp baking soda
Before you begin, take a cookie sheet and flip it over, back side up and butter generously. Place it on a table or work space that will give you room to move around. Once you pour the hot brittle on it will be too hot to move until its cool. Measure out your ingredients before you begin, butter and vanilla in a small bowl and baking soda in another small bowl.
In a 1 1/2 quart casserole, stir peanuts, sugar, corn syrup and salt together. Cook 8 minutes at high, stirring well after 4 minutes. Add butter and vanilla, cook one minute longer at high. Add baking soda and quickly stir until light and foamy. Pour on the buttered cookie sheet. As soon as you can touch the edges, stretch the candy as thin as you can using two forks (assistance is best here…get a friend to help).
Grandma always buttered the table around the cookie sheets to give us extra room to stretch. I might do a video on this so that you can see the process. Once you make your brittle like this, you’ll never go back to thick tooth buster brittle.
Love you Grandma!
