Mom's Peanut Brittle Recipe

Directions

Generously butter a 12x18 inch cookie sheet. Set aside.
Mix sugar, water, and corn syrup in a heavy skillet. Stir well until it comes to a boil. Cover and boil 3 minutes. Continue to boil to hard ball stage (when a little bit dropped into a cupful of cold water forms a hard ball - hence the name!) 250 degrees F (120 degrees C).
Stir in butter and peanuts. Continue cooking until mixture turns a light brown color. Remove from heat.
Mix together salt, vanilla, baking soda and water. Combine this with syrup and nuts mixture. Mix well, and fast.
Pour onto prepared cookie sheet. Use back of buttered spoon to spread thinly and evenly. Allow to cool, then break into pieces. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

Reviews (46)

136

PYRITE90

Dec. 24, 2005

"A great peanut brittle recipe. However, the recipe needs one little correction. Boiling the sugar, water and corn syrup to the "hard ball" stage makes a sticky, chewy candy. Heating to 300F degrees cr..." See moreeates a more traditional peanut brittle."

BGCITYKAT

Dec. 15, 2005

"The trick is to let it get golden brown for that buttery, caramel flavour. We made several batches, tinkering with the proportions to get the taste and texture just right (for us!) Peanuts 1 1/3 cup..." See mores, 3/8 tsp sea salt, 3 tbsp real butter and we decreased the baking soda to 3/4 tsp. We prefered batches that were fork-teased. The result was tender, buttery and not too foamy. I also found adding peanuts a little later - two or three minutes after syrup had come to a bubbling boil - helped prevent the nuts from becoming too toasty. Also fabulous with whole almonds. Thanks to all above reviewers, you helped!"

Goodfood

Oct. 19, 2008

"One of 2 very similar recipes on here. Combine the instructions together for best results. I used 1C of peanuts and would use more next time. When you add the peanuts the temperature will drop, res..." See moreist the temptation to crank up the setting on your stove. Mixture will shortly return to temp and begin climbing. I think where most have problems is they cook on too high of a setting. After adding peanuts, continue cooking until it reaches 300 degrees (until it is "light brown" is too vague for me when making candy). Until water initially boils off, temperature will climb rather slowly (this is NORMAL for all candy making), just have to give it a few minutes. Recipe says to cover for 3 min. but I don't see that matters, the whole point of the initial cooking is to boil off the water. Certainly recommend a candy thermometer for best/most consistent results since that ice water method is very imprecise unless you have extensive candy making experience. Would also be great with other types of nuts (i.e. almonds or cashews). Pour hot mixture on lightly buttered aluminum foil, let sit until cool then break into desired size pieces."

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