Homemade Peanut Brittle
Make your whole kitchen smell like a candy shop with this cozy, small-batch homemade peanut brittle. Make one batch of this crunchy sweet treat, and you'll feel like a kitchen rockstar.
🔍 Recipe At-A-Glance: Homemade Peanut Brittle
- ⏱ Prep Time: 10 minutes
- ⏰ Cook Time: 30 minutes (plus an hour of cooling)
- 🥜 Flavor Profile: Snappy, crunchy-sticky caramelized sugar against salty roasted peanuts.
- 🎄 Good For: Adding some variety to a Christmas cookie plate, packaging up for holiday gifts, and treating a peanut lover!
- 🔄 Make Ahead: Can be made up to a month in advance. Or three, if you're freezing it!
- 🧡 Difficulty: Easy, as long as you measure out all your ingredients in advance!
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🧡 Why You'll Love This Recipe
Hi friend: Some of the best gifts to give and receive over the holidays are homemade ones. The only thing that makes homemade gifts even better is when they're tasty, easy to make, food gifts! This peanut brittle recipe checks all the boxes. It's easy to make, easy to gift, and 100% delicious.
Here's why you'll love this recipe:
- Perfect for gifting: This is a very simple candy recipe that's perfect for holiday gifting (the only simpler candy recipe is my vegan fudge!). And I know homemade food gifts-I literally wrote the book on them!
- Make ahead: As with my saltine toffee recipe, you can get a head start on your holiday baking with this peanut brittle-it stores well for up to a month (three if you freeze it). Pair it with some of my buckeye balls and maple rosemary bar nuts for the ultimate gift for a nut lover!
- Winter advantage: Our houses can get so dang dry in the winter, but the one good thing about that is that it is the perfect brittle-making environment! Humidity and homemade peanut brittle are mortal enemies, so take advantage of the dry winter air while you can.
🥜 The Ingredients You Need
- Peanuts: Give your peanuts a taste before making brittle. They are the headliner of the ingredients cast list, so you want to make sure you enjoy the flavor of the peanuts you're using! If you only have raw peanuts, you'll want to roast and salt them first.
- Baking soda: Baking soda is the secret ingredient that will make your peanut brittle airy and perfectly crunchy instead of dense (just like in my caramel popcorn recipe!). When you add it right at the end, it introduces a bunch of tiny air bubbles to your peanut brittle and gives the candy its satisfying snap!
Make sure to check the recipe card below for the full ingredients list, along with quantities and my expert tips and tricks.
🔁 Variations & Substitutions
- Vanilla peanut brittle: If you don't have maple extract, you can substitute it with vanilla extract. The flavor won't be as compelling, but it'll work in a pinch.
- Any-kind-of-nut brittle: Walnuts, chopped pecans, or chopped almonds would all taste delicious substituted into this peanut brittle recipe.
- Same shape, different flavor: Looking for a homemade gift that packs up like peanut brittle, but is filled with chocolate? Try my peppermint bark recipe or cranberry pistachio bark!
🥣 How To Make Peanut Brittle
Step 1: It's important to make sure you have all your ingredients measured and ready to go before you start this recipe. Candy making moves pretty quickly and you don't want to be caught without what you need when the next step comes up!
Prepare a rimmed baking sheet by greasing it with oil or butter. You can also lightly spray some parchment paper if you have it on hand.
Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir the sugar mixture occasionally as it comes to a boil.
Step 2: When the mixture is clear and boiling, brush water around the edges of the pot and heat until it reaches 275°F. You'll need a candy thermometer to measure the temperature.
Step 3: Add in the peanuts and the butter. Stir the mixture constantly until it turns a golden-brown and has reached 300°F.
Step 4: Stir in the baking soda and the maple extract. Pour the peanut brittle onto your greased cookie sheet, using a spoon to smooth it out.
Step 5: Allow to cool. It should take your peanut brittle roughly an hour to harden at room temperature. This gives you some time to figure out packaging if you're giving it out as a holiday gift!
🙋🏻♀️ Homemade Peanut Brittle FAQs
Two things can change the texture of peanut brittle so it's soft and sticky instead of hard and crunchy. The first is that it wasn't cooked long enough. You can prevent this by making sure you don't remove it from the heat until it's reached 300°F on a candy thermometer.
If your peanut brittle was originally hard but softened over time, humidity levels might be the culprit. Keep your peanut brittle in an airtight container and extend its life by storing it in a cool, dry place (not the fridge!).
If you don't want soft peanut brittle, you can try to crisp it up by repeating the last few steps. Place your broken pieces of peanut brittle in the saucepan over medium heat. Once everything has melted, turn up the heat and allow the mixture to come to 300°F. Then spread it out again, let it cool, and break it into new pieces
Easy mistakes to make when making peanut brittle include cooking it in high humidity (that makes sticky brittle), not using a heavy-bottomed pot (which means scorched candy), and spreading it too thick (nobody wants a cracked tooth!).
Humidity is the enemy of peanut brittle, which means you can't keep it in the fridge. Thankfully, peanut brittle stores well on the counter for up to a month as long as it's in an airtight container. You can also store peanut brittle for up to three months in the freezer.
👩🏻🍳 My Expert Tips & Tricks
- Be prepared: While I always support getting all your ingredients ready before you start cooking, with candy making it is super important. Things happen fast when you're making peanut brittle, so you want to have everything measured out and ready to go.
- Brush it: Get out a pastry brush so you can brush the inside of the pot with water as the syrup bubbles. That will help prevent crystallization (i.e.: grainy brittle) by washing away any remaining sugar granules that haven't dissolved.
- Parchment paper or bust: Do not make the same mistake I made the first time I made peanut brittle and line your sheet with wax paper. The wax is heat-sensitive, and will melt right into your peanut brittle...which is why I had to toss that entire first batch. If you're going to line your baking sheet with anything, make it parchment paper (though I usually just grease the pan directly).
- Package for gifting: You can wrap up your peanut brittle in a variety of ways. If you're giving a large batch to someone, try using a festive cookie tin or container. If you're planning on sharing the wealth and giving everyone a few pieces, you can wrap them in plastic wrap inside bags, or stick some in a mason jar wrapped with a holiday ribbon! The key is to keep individual pieces of peanut brittle separated by some wax paper and to make sure the container is airtight.
🎄 More Easy Food Gift Recipes:
If you tried this homemade peanut brittle or any other recipe on my blog, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the comments!
📖 Recipe
Peanut Brittle
Ingredients
- 2 cups white granulated sugar
- 1 cup light corn syrup
- ¾ cup water
- 2 ½ cups salted roasted peanuts
- 3 tablespoon unsalted butter cubed
- 2 teaspoon maple extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- Grease a rimmed baking sheet with butter or oil and set aside.
- In a saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and water over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
- Once the mixture is clear and boiling, use a brush to brush water around the edges of the inside of the pot (this prevent crystallization).
- Using a candy thermometer, heat the mixture until 275°F.
- Once heated to 275°F, stir in the peanuts and butter. Stir constantly until the mixture becomes golden brown and is heated to 300°F.
- Remove from heat and quickly stir in the maple extract and baking soda.
- Carefully pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet, smoothing quickly with a greased spoon or spatula. Allow to cool at room temperature until completely hardened (about an hour).
- Break into large pieces, then serve or store in an airtight container.
Notes
- It's important to get all of your ingredients ready before starting this recipe. Things move very quickly and are time sensitive when making candy so it's best just to have everything ready before you start!
- Brushing the inside of the pot with water helps to prevent crystallization by washing away any remaining sugar granules that haven't dissolved.
- Maple extract is not essential but adds a lot of flavor! You can sub vanilla extract if you prefer.
- Chopped pecans, walnuts, almonds, and other nuts all work as great substitutes in this recipe.
Nutrition
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Everyone is so impressed when you make your own candy, and peanut brittle is one of the easiest to make. This recipe is definitely worth making!