Uncle Bob's Old Fashioned Peanut Brittle

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

If you like an old-fashioned candy treat, try my peanut brittle…

You’ll need:

½ cup light corn syrup
1 cup white sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup water
1½ generous cups peanuts
¾ tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 TB butter
A candy thermometer


First, take a pat of butter and generously grease a half sheet. Set it aside where you can get to it quick.

Soften the 2 TB of butter a bit. Pre-measure and set by handy the baking soda, butter, peanuts and the vanilla.

Add the sugar, the corn syrup, water and salt in a heavy 2 qt sauce pan. Set burner on medium heat. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Heat and stir until the sugars are blended and mixture begins to boil. Add the vanilla and peanuts. Stir frequently and watch the mixture carefully. At close to the end of the cooking time, check the temperature – I would start checking at about 15 minutes or so. I stir constantly from about 10 or 12 minutes on (although I do not ignore it before that point either). While you cook it, the texture will change as the water boils off (it gets thicker and gooey-er). The temperature will level off for a minute or two at about 240-250 (or so) but it will eventually start to rise again, and once it does it moves up fairly quickly.  Total cooking time for me, in a medium saucepan on medium heat, approaches 25 to 30 minutes.

When the mixture reaches 300 degrees, add the softened butter and the baking soda, stirring all the while. Stir while the butter melts and the fizzing stabilizes (the baking soda will cause the mixture to fizz). Remove from the heat. Working quickly, dump the candy out onto the prepared sheet and spread it out with two forks (or I use the back of a wooden spoon). Spread it out quickly so that it is a thin layer across the entire sheet.

Set the brittle in a place where it can cool off – after about 20 to 30 minutes, lift and pry the brittle from the sheet with a thin spatula (this is where you find out if you were generous enough with the buttering of the half sheet) and break it up into the desired size pieces as you do.

Sample the product to make certain it is OK. Do this several times. Send me a sample and I’ll check it for you…You hafta be sure, you know… Store what's left in an airtight container. Great stuff, and it will keep a week or two probably. If you let others try this, they're really gonna like you lots.

Notes: I have tried this with Spanish peanuts and regular or light-salt cocktail peanuts; they all turned out fine.

This is not a recipe you can ignore while it cooks -- hang out and stir so it doesn't burn on you.

I have changed this recipe back to all-white sugar -- it can be made with brown sugar, or a mix. Most people who have stated a preference have said they like this with all-white sugar best -- so I have modified the recipe to reflect this.