Homemade peanut brittle is an easy, peanutty sweet treat that satisfies your sweet tooth and crunchy cravings. Bite-sized golden pieces of brittle with peanuts will have coming back for more!
You don’t need a candy thermometer to make this old-fashioned peanut brittle. I’ll show you how to make it without one along with a special “pulling” technique. It’s the only recipe that I use for making Homemade Peanut Brittle.
Don’t worry if you are not an experienced candy maker or know anything about “crack stage” orhow to temper chocolate. (By the way, there is no chocolate in this recipe.)
This recipe came from my Southern mother-in-law. To make her peanut brittle, you need two cups of raw or parched peanuts. (I used the entire contents of a 16-ounce bag of parched peanuts. The more nuts the merrier, in my opinion.)
Let’s look at how to make this Southern treat.
Ingredients
To make this peanut brittle recipe, you need the following ingredients:
⅔ cup light corn syrup
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 cups raw peanuts
1 tablespoon baking soda
How To Make Peanut Brittle
In a large saucepan, combine the nuts with corn syrup and sugar and cook over medium-high heat until it turns honey-colored. It takes me about 15 minutes.
Once the color becomes rich, golden brown, add baking soda.
A chemical reaction will occur and the mixture will foam and lighten in color.
Spread the candy mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or one that has been well-greased. (A couple of tablespoons of butter should do the trick.) Or you can go all Alton Brown and use a Silpat liner (silicone baking mat).
Spread the mixture out a bit using a wooden spoon or spatula.
Store peanut brittle in an airtight container at room temperature for 6 to 8 weeks.
Before it has cooled completely, take two forks and “pull” the brittle apart. This technique set my mother-in-law’s brittle apart from others. The pulled brittle is easier to eat than the thick brittle typically sold in stores.
Becareful because the brittle is really hot.
Do not attempt to make peanut brittle when it is humid outside or while it is raining. It’s very similar to making divinity. Humidity and peanut brittle are not friends.
Peanut brittle makes a great edible gift during the holiday season. Layer it in a glass jar and tie a festive ribbon. Your gift recipients will thank you for this family favorite delicious treat.
Vernel’s Homemade Peanut Brittle
You don’t need a candy thermometer to make this peanut brittle. The special “pulling” technique creates sweet, crunchy strands of sugar and nuts that you will love.
4.58 from 7 votes
Print Pin Rate
Course: Desserts
Cuisine: American
Prep Time: 5 minutesminutes
Cook Time: 15 minutesminutes
Total Time: 20 minutesminutes
Servings: 6
Calories: 578kcal
Author: Lynda – Southern Kissed
Ingredients
⅔cuplight corn syrup
1 ½cupssugar
2cupsraw peanuts
1tablespoonbaking soda
Instructions
Grease, butter, or line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside
Mix together corn syrup, sugar and raw peanuts in a large saucepan.
Cook over medium-high heat until mixture turns honey colored.
Remove from heat. Add baking soda and stir well.
Pour mixture onto prepared baking sheet. As soon as brittle has set, use utensils to pull and stretch brittle into pieces. Caution: Brittle will be very hot.
The nice thing about this peanut brittle recipe is that you don’t need a candy thermometer to make it. Once you have made it a few times, you learn how to judge the process by the colors of the mixture.
Be sure to come back and tell us how your homemade peanut brittle turned out!
Hungry for more Southern favorites? Be sure to check out these other delicious recipes:
Easy Chicken and Dumplings – Both a family and reader favorite, this recipe is easy to make and is Southern comfort food at its finest.
Buttermilk Biscuits – You only need three simple ingredients to make these light and fluffy biscuits. They’re perfect for serving alongside a meal or stuffed with meat, egg, and cheese for the main course.
Old Fashioned Tea Cakes – This recipe is an authentic Southern recipe – it was transcribed while my mother-in-law made them by heart.
Classic Pound Cake– This recipe comes from Lulu Buffet, the sister of singer Jimmy Buffet. It’s a great treat to enjoy with company.
Baking soda is a key ingredient in making homemade brittle. When you add peanut brittle to the sugary syrup, it lets out tons of air bubbles (don't worry…they are tiny!) and it is what gives the candy such a light, airy texture. Don't skip it! Without baking soda, the brittle will be hard and chewy.
To store: Once it's completely cooled, store peanut brittle in an airtight container at room temperature. Do not refrigerate as the moisture from the fridge will cause the brittle to soften. Store for 6-8 weeks. To Freeze: Peanut brittle can be frozen and stored up to 3 months.
The mixture will foam and grow so make sure to stir constantly to completely incorporate. Working quickly, pour into prepared 10×15 pan. To keep the brittle light and airy, do not spread or flatten the mixture. Instead, let it flow freely.
It's what's missing — corn syrup. A common brittle ingredient, Asare said, corn syrup causes brittle to go all gooey, gummy and tooth-clingy as it melts in your mouth, whereas sugar crunches, crumbles and dissolves.
The main reason why peanut brittle doesn't get hard and have the crunch we expect is because the sugar was not cooked long enough. The sugar needs to be cooked to what is called the hard crack stage, 300ºF.
You can try placing the stale peanut brittle on a baking sheet and gently heating it in an oven at a low temperature, around 250°F (120°C), for a few minutes. This can help to soften it a bit and restore some of its original texture.
The candy will attract moisture from the air, making it unpleasantly sticky instead of shatteringly crisp. Once it's completely cool, transfer it to an airtight container.
Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir sugar and salt with melted butter to dissolve completely. Remove saucepan from heat, add peanuts, and stir to coat completely; immediately pour onto prepared pan and spread into an even layer. Refrigerate until brittle, at least 30 minutes.
If you do NOT have a thermometer, here's what you do. Take a very small cup of cold water and drop a bit of the mixture in. If it dissolves into the water, it's not ready. Mine took 18 minutes to reach the correct temperature, so around 15 minutes start trying the water test.
Peanut brittle has one redeeming quality: peanuts. Outside of that single ingredient, peanut brittle is painfully unhealthy. It contains: sugar, corn syrup, and butter, all of which are unhealthy for your body in different ways.
I've learned that brittle is better when made on a cool, dry day. When I've made the candy on a warmer, humid day, it tends to be a stickier brittle. This is because the brittle takes longer to cool, and it reaches a point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air.
Not spreading the mixture thinly enough: If the peanut brittle is too thick (usually because you used too small of a pan), it may not cool and harden properly. Be sure to spread the mixture as thinly as possible in the pan. 4. Humidity: Humidity can affect the hardening process of the peanut brittle.
Baking soda helps to aerate brittle — it literally makes the molten candy bubble in the pot — to create a brittle with an airy, almost honeycomblike texture that crunches easily when eaten.
When the baking soda combines with the boiled sugar, it creates Carbon Dioxide that form lots of bubbles and puff the candy up. Once it hardens, the bubbles get trapped inside and create a texture that looks just like a sponge or piece of foam. It's crunchy and sweet, with an almost molasses-like flavor.
Why didn't my homemade peanut brittle get hard? Same answer as the question above. If your peanut brittle is not hardening, it's because the sugar mixture did not get hot enough to properly caramelize, cool and become hard, crisp and crunchy.
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