This article was originally published in the Hamilton County Herald on December 2, 2011.
I have already written an article on peanuts – you remember, it was all about how George Washington Carver discovered the many uses of peanuts after the Civil War, one of them being peanut butter.
Slavery brought peanuts over here from Africa (at that time called groundnut) but Americans thought they were unfit to eat and so just used them for feeding livestock.
One of my more recent articles was on Groundnuts – or peanuts. Until I read the book, “A Long Way Gone,” by Ishmael Beah, I didn’t realize that the Groundnut he was referring to in his story as one of their staple food items was indeed the peanut. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to put 2+2 together!
Anyway, that is how the peanut got it’s start in America. So thank-you to all of the ancestors of the African descent for bestowing upon America, the wonderful peanut, and thank-you to George Washington Carver who helped us to realize the peanut’s potential with his paper, “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption”.
Included in Mr. Carver’s paper is a recipe for Peanut Wafers, which actually is a form of peanut brittle.
Peanut Brittle has always had a reputation of being difficult to make, so much so, that some people have never even attempted it. Some cooks have said that the temperature and humidity outside have to be just right; some cooks prefer to use a candy thermometer while others prefer to use the old-fashioned cold-water way to test the doneness of candy.
Well, what I have learned from a good friend is a recipe that is so simple, all you need is a microwave, a measuring cup and a spoon. No worries about the humidity, the hard-crack stage, or how long to let it boil.
This recipe was given to me by Mr. Lane Burton who lives in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Lane is David’s uncle from a previous marriage; if you have read my recent articles, you know David is serving in Iraq at this time.
Well, according to David it seems his Uncle Lane has a long history of making some pretty darn-good peanut brittle, and when I asked him to share the recipe, I couldn’t believe it was so simple.
Lane is going to make several batches of it and mail it over to David in saved Parkay margarine buckets. Seems like a great idea to me! A perfect treat from home!
Anyway, this is an easy way to make Peanut Brittle and come to find out, this recipe had been around quite a while.
But then, since I am one of those cooks that has always thought of it being difficult so never fooled with it much, I just never knew!
Microwave Peanut Brittle
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup white corn syrup
1 1/2 cups raw peanuts
1/2 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 teaspoons baking
soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
Dash of salt
Put sugar and syrup in a bowl (glass works the best), and microwave for 2 1/2 minutes on high. Stir mixture and microwave for 2 1/2 more minutes on high. Stir in peanuts and microwave 2 1/2 more minutes on high. Remove from microwave and add salt, butter, vanilla, and baking soda. Stir mixture rapidly until it is foamy.
Pour mixture onto a greased cookie sheet; you can bump the sheet on the counter to make mixture spread out more but do not try to spread mixture by touching it for this will make the peanut brittle very hard and unable to eat. The times in this recipe are for a 1200-watt microwave you may have to adjust times for different wattage microwaves.