Peanut Brittle

Oh my goodness! My mom has been making this treasured recipe for as many years as I can remember. Of course as I got older I began to help and have even taken over making the beloved holiday treat of homemade Peanut Brittle. Now I am not over exaggerating when I say that it is absolutely fantastic. I could eat it all year round!

However....this stuff is tough to make. It requires so many little steps, sticky stuff, and such little product from each batch is produced. Mom and I have decided to get together to make our holiday goodies (making fudge tonight) and it makes the process so much better. One of us cooks and the other one is the preparer and cleaner! After I show you this process you will probably hope for 3 or 4 people to work on this at a time!


Here we go!!

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light Karo syrup
1 cup peanuts
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp butter/margarine
1 tsp baking soda

That's it...haha!
To make this we use a large glass mixing bowl/measuring bowl. We worked with 3 this time so we could keep the process going.

Step 1: Sugar and Karo syrup-mix together in glass bowl
Microwave on high for 4 minutes



Step 2: Peanuts
Dump peanuts in mixture (leaving it in microwave just reach in and dump peanuts)
Microwave on high for 3 minutes


Step 3: Vanilla and Butter
Dump into the mixture (leaving it in microwave, I use a big spoon so the vanilla and butter are on the same utensil and I just can make one movement)
Microwave on high 1 minute


Step 4: Baking Soda
Grab glass bowl with pot holder and remove from microwave. Drop in baking soda and STIR...like crazy...and fast....and then dump mixture (scraping the bowl clean) onto a buttered cookie sheet. Take cookie sheet and shake from side to side to spread the mixture out so it will be the right thickness. You have to do this quick because it will cool extremely fast.



Cool...then crumble and store in ziploc bags.



Easy Huh!!?!?! THE WORST PART.....one recipe only fills two sandwich size ziplocs!! Mom and I used 10 lbs of sugar, 2 containers of peanuts from Sams, and 8 bottles of Karo.

This stuff is tough to make and you must move fast. There is no time to sit back, take a break. You must know the recipe before you get started. I like to make an assembly line with all of my ingredients. I only really messed up one batch when I accidentally repeated Step 2!

Oh well.

We had a great time and our family will be excited to get this stuff!