I have a candy and confection cookbook from England. One item mentioned is “ground nut oil”, often used for greasing pans. Is this peanut oil, as we US folks would call it, or something else?
Yes it is. 
ONe minute for an answer! Thanks so much!
I love this board.
Off topic, but gotta ask…what yummies are you cooking up now?
Appropriate username win.
Is this just a UK thing? Because I’m sure I heard someone from another place use the term ‘ground nuts’ before I heard it from there.
I’m in the UK and I’ve only ever heard the term ‘ground nuts’ used by Americans on this board.
Also by psychopathic misandrists with mincers.
I have a bottle of “groundnut oil” from Sainsbury’s. I also have a bottle of “peanut oil” from Aldi.
Could it be that it’s called that because of negative associations with peanuts?
What negative associations?
Allergies.
Some Africans and Caribbeans say groundnuts.
Oh, yeah. I grew up before peanut allergies existed ( 
), so they’re not much on my radar.
It’s possible I heard it in connection with African cuisine.
.
I’m going to make some candies from a book titled Life Is Sweet. It’s from a line of sweet shops in the UK called Hope and Greenwood. I’d never heard of them, being an American, but the book turned up being donated to our library booksale. Just about everything in it looks absolutely nummy.
The recipe titled Coconut Ice looks like a recipe for those coconut candies in Neapolitan colors that Brach’s makes. And there’s a recipe called Cinder Toffee that’s supposed to be textured like the inside of Violet Crumble. I had some of that in an international candy exchange on the Dope, several years ago.
I’d imagine that any possible public image benefits arising from people not knowing that groundnuts are peanuts would be negated by the first fatality caused by someone not knowing that groundnuts are peanuts. 
I always assumed that the name had some connection to the Groundnut Scheme, which was partly sold on the vast range of commercial uses for the humble monkey nut, cooking oil being only one.
Sounds like sponge toffee, or “honeycomb” as it’s also known. Or, apparently, hokey-pokey to Kiwis. It’s *really *fun to make.
Be aware that not every groundnut is a peanut, there are other subterranean legume varieties in Africa called that which rock up in ethic cooking.
But in a recipe book, I’d expect them to mean peanuts.
I heard Nigella Lawson use the term yesterday.
:smack: oh yeah.
If you liked that, you’ll love The Green & Blacks Chocolate Book. I have this; every recipe is a winner (apart from the chocolate raspberry torte which turned out foul both times I made it).
Damn right.
Delia mentions “groundnut oil” in a number of her recipes, it’s her default cooking oil as she reckons the flavour of it doesn’t overpower whatever you cook in it, unlike other oils. Hence I’ve been using it for years.
It can also handle much higher temperatures than olive oil.