Day 4: Here a Peanut; There a Peanut; Everywhere Peanuts - oh and a small fire

Yes, I know that I am late in getting my blog posted today, but to confirm, it is not due to recipe difficulties...I have just had a very busy day. I even wrote some this blog while riding in the car on the way to my nephew's indoor soccer game. So......Day 4 -Peanut Brittle. A couple of notes worthy of mentioning about peanut brittle:

1. I now know why peanut brittle costs so much to purchase retail; and

2. This is a candy dessert that you have to be committed to before you begin.

Folks, this is not like slice and bake cookies and read part of the paper while they are baking.....oh no.....this involves a candy thermometer which takes this to a whole new level. One, frankly, that I was not sure that I could handle. There were horror stories of peanut brittle down from generation to generation in my family. The year an aunt got burned by the syrup mixture; the year the peanuts had gone rancid; and the year that the peanut brittle turned green....yes, I said green AND it happened twice. My sister and I witnessed the latter....my sister swears I was responsible for the first batch of green peanut brittle - this I do not recall or maybe I chose to repress it; however, we both agree that mom was responsible for the second green batch. And to this day, none of us can figure out how or why it would have turned green. Oh, I guess if I really wanted to know, I could pose the question to a chemist or a scientist, but some questions are best left unanswered. Besides, the story would lose a little bit of its luster if we had an answer.

My experience with the brittle will probably not make the cut of horror stories of years before, but here it is: First, you have to have a candy thermometer (mine was my grandma's) and you have to make sure that you attach it to the side of the pot, but you have to make sure kit does not touch the bottom of the pot or you do not get an accurate reading. And the last thing that you want is reaching the hard candy stage when you are really at the soft candy stage. Thermometer positioned, sugar, light Karo syrup and water added to the pot - medium heat and then you wait....and wait....and wait...and wait. This is when I pulled the step stool up to the front of the stove and waited some more. Before you can do anything, you have to wait until the temperature of the sugar syrup mixture reaches 234 degrees....not 230 or 235, but 234. Really?!?!?! I panic a bit here, because my thermometer has increments in five, not 4...so I waited until it got to 235. In goes 2 cups of raw Spanish peanuts and salt. And then you stir, and stir, and stir, and stir, and stir. Did I mention that you have to stir?!?!?! You have to keep stirring until the temp reaches 305 and then quickly you have to add 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 teaspoon of baking soda...stir, stir, stir and pour out on two greased cookie sheets. Had a little stubble here with the butter and I can confirm, that when you drop the butter between the pot and the butter...it does flame up.....I hesitate to call my incident a fire, but it does flame and of course melts everywhere. I did jump back a little bit, but recovered and got more butter; add the baking soda and stirred and poured it out onto cookie sheets. Let it hardened and break it into pieces.

Recap: can't buy a small amount of raw Spanish peanuts so I have to figure out what the heck I am going to do with about 4 more cups of them; lots of waiting (which coincides with the high retail price) for the syrup to come up to temp; could have used some more salt; lots of stirring (which coincides with the high retail price) for the syrup and peanuts to come to temp; move quickly with the salt and baking powder; and a nice tablespoon of butter slightly seared to the grate, the burner cap, and the drip pan [sigh]. And if anyone has any ideas what you can do with raw Spanish peanuts other than making more peanut brittle - let me know.