Okay baking geniuses. I would like to try the microwave peanut brittle again, and my preference is always to use brown sugar rather than white sugar. Plus, I have lots of brown sugar and not so much white sugar.
I have gathered from the internet that you cannot make peanut brittle with only brown sugar. Every recipe I see has a certain quantity of white sugar plus some brown sugar.
Now this is kind of tricky because one of the things you check to see if you’re doing it right not undercooking and not burning, is the color, and of course brown sugar would be darker. So is that the only reason?
Not being a chemist I don’t understand why I can’t just substitute one kind of sugar for another. I know the brown sugar is stickier. If the issue is the texture then well, I can microplane a cone of mexican brown sugar really fine.
FWIW I do use brown sugar measure for measure instead of white sugar in certain other recipes. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t know why. But in most cases if it comes out a little different it won’t matter–it will still be edible and delicious even if the texture is not perfect. With peanut brittle, if it’s not mouth-perfect it just a failure IMO.
huh ive never heard of using brown sugar in peanut brittle ……I’m going to be making peanut brittle later tonight so I have no clue on if it would work … But the problem I see would be the molasses in the brown sugar might do something weird …
We do it the mid century way with corn syrup a big pot on the stove and an ancient old fashion candy thermometer…….
Same here. I’ve never even heard of microwave peanut brittle before this thread. I’ve checked and I guess it’s a legitimate thing so, OK. The stove top method has always worked well for me though.
I have made it with brown sugar before and I couldn’t get the feel of it right though. It came out like a very tough toffee than a shatterable brittle. Maybe I needed to take it to a slightly higher temp or press it out a bit thinner while it was still hot? Not sure.
Having just roasted 4 lbs of pecans… Pecan brittle is not to be missed. Just add the roasted pecans right at the end rather than cooking them like the raw peanuts.
Since microwave peanut brittle is very fast I did two versions. One with half and half, granulated and brown, and one with just granulated.
I kept the same cooking time (4 min., add peanuts, 3.5 min., add vanilla and butter, 1.5 min, add baking soda) but with the brown sugar, which I thought might cook faster, I decreased the power level on my microwave from full force to 90 percent.
They both came out perfect, that is to say, yummy, and with perfect mouth-feel. They are approximately the same color. But there is no appreciable difference in taste.
I should note, about the difference between tough toffee and brittle brittle, that I’ve noticed you don’t want to work it too much when spreading it out to cool. Which is to say, don’t wrestle with it if it’s sticking to the spoon. (I use a wooden spoon which I have buttered beforehand to mostly avoid this problem.) The areas where I spread it thinner were tougher, in the first batch–but the thicker areas were fine. So in the second batch I didn’t mess with it as much. I think I squeezed out some air, or something like that.
Could be, stranger things have happened. My standard recipe works well enough for me so I don’t futz with it.
In regards to pecans in brittle, to each his/her own but IMHO, pecans have too much culinary value to get dumped into a load of brittle. I’ve made it and enjoyed it but not enough to push me from the peanut default.