Fructose free peanut brittle recipe

This recipe is not for the faint of heart, the weak of teeth or the allergic of peanuts. It's also a bit of a marathon to make, which isn't to say it's not easy, it's just not quick. Mine took several hours (yep hours) to cook, and you need to stay by the stove pretty much the whole time (although you can do other things between stirring: fold washing, unstack dishwasher, make White Christmas slice, write blog, etc). But the results are well worth it if you are a peanut brittle fan like me.

You'll do best with a candy thermometer for this one. Believe me.


Ok, here we go. The original recipe is here (for those who stumbled onto this page looking for peanut brittle a la normale)

Fructose Free Peanut Brittle 
2 cups dextrose powder
1 cup glucose syrup
1/2 cup water
240g butter (yep, that's nearly a whole stick of butter)- cut into smaller pieces
2 cups peanuts- raw, roasted, salted, whatever you like. I used Nobbys salted peanuts chopped roughly
1 tsp. baking soda- if your baking soda is anything like mine it will be full of lumps, so I suggest you pre measure and press all the lumps out using a fork, as getting a lump of un-mixed soda in your peanut brittle is an unhappy surprise.

(Note: the above makes a LOT of peanut brittle. When I've made this recipe in the past I have halved the recipe and it works just fine- in fact, from memory, it took a lot less time to cook. Today I made the full recipe without thinking, so luckily mum and dad will be here for Christmas to help me eat it all up).



Method:

Combine dextrose, glucose syrup and water in a saucepan. Cook on a moderate heat (stirring) until the mixture goes from opaque white to almost clear, as pictured. 

Starts white...

Goes nearly clear- that's science for ya!

Let it come to a boil. When it boils, add the butter and keep stirring. It will look a bit funny- like the butter is not mixing in properly. Don't worry about this. Stir some more. This recipe is nearly all about stirring, sorry.

Buttery goodness

So, stir until the butter has melted in and then keep stirring until the mixture boils again. Keep it at a moderate boil. The mixture is now hitting what I call the toddler stage- you can leave it alone for about a minute or so, but don't think that it is independent. Oh no. It still needs lots of your attention. I would say stir fairly frequently at this stage. Use your candy thermometer to check it and once it reaches 230 degrees F (this will feel like forever), change from fairly frequently to frequently. So, not quite constantly. Between stirs you can go tend to that washing, or feed your real toddler, or send me a message below telling me how much you like this recipe (except of course you haven't finished it yet. So, save that for later)

The mixture will darken as it cooks- here are some pictures to entertain you while you stir (I'm presuming you have a laptop while you make this, you see).

Caramelly goodness

Slightly darker caramelly goodness (several hours later- felt like anyway)

Add peanuts when the temperature reaches soft crack stage (280 degrees F). Now you have to change from stirring frequently to- you guessed it- constantly. (To be honest, I just kept with frequently- I'm a rebel like that).

Nut much further to go! Get it?

Keep with your constant stirring until temperature reaches hard crack stage (305 degrees F). Take it off the heat immediately, and stir in your lump-free baking soda, mixing it thoroughly. Pour onto 2 cookie sheets or baking trays- greased or lined with baking paper. You can't spread it once you pour it, but if it's too thick, as the brittle cools, you can stretch it thinner by lifting and pulling from the edges. 

Once it cools you can break it into pieces. If you have such thing as a toffee hammer, then go ahead and use it now. Lord knows you are never going to use it otherwise.

The finished product- the full recipe makes twice this amount.
Yep, I have only photographed half of it for you. I'm lazy like that.

And that's it. If you have any questions, post them below.

Creamy caramels

Creamy caramels

2/3 of the way through a series about going organic, and I’ve got a hankering for caramels. I’ll finish the organic thing later, I promise!

There are still days when I miss my lollies, and this week I’ve been really feeling it. I’ve been friends with them for so many years. I no longer crave them, but every now and then I have just a little sigh and a little wish for a sweet treat. And chocolate is all well and good, but some days you just need CANDY.

I’ve done a few experiments with glucose-based jelly lollies and hard boiled lollies, but I’m not happy with the outcome (I’ll post a recipe if I ever get them right). But the other day I wanted caramels, and nothing else, so I set out to see if they could be made without fructose. I found a recipe online here and decided to mold it to my fructose-free will. Mwa ha ha!

This recipe makes these soft, buttery caramels. 

Delicious for a sweet treat, and just what I was after J You will need a candy thermometer. Mine was about $6 from House (or was it Home?).

Here are the ingredients:

·         1 cup glucose syrup

·         1/4  cup water

·         1 cups dextrose powder

·         1 cup double cream

·         1/4 cup evaporated milk

·         1/4 cup softened butter, cut into small cubes

Line a pan with alfoil and spray the foil with oil/ cooking spray. This is VERY important unless you want to be picking foil out of your teeth later J

In a medium saucepan, heat the glucose syrup, water and dextrose. Just a tip for measuring out the glucose syrup which is so thick that it seems more like a solid than a liquid (at least when you are trying to get it from jar to measuring cup and from cup to pan!). Put the jar in a saucepan or bowl filled with hot water and leave it for a little bit. The syrup gets runnier as it heats slightly – which makes it much easier to pour out. Believe me, you will thank me for this step.

So, once the syrup, dextrose and water are in a saucepan and heating away, stir them until sugar dissolves (mine still looked a bit cloudy but wasn’t getting any clearer so I just let it go to the next stage: ). Allow the mixture to come to the boil, reduce the heat so that it is bubbling away by itself and insert the candy thermometer. Let the mixture boil until the candy thermometer shows 120 C (250 F).

While this is happening, you need to prepare the cream and evaporated milk by heating them in a separate saucepan- they need to be warm, but don’t let them boil. Have your butter ready as well.

When the sugar mixture hits 120C, it’s time to tip in the heated cream/evaporated milk mixture and the butter. The temperature will decrease- relax, this is normal.

Pull up a chair because you need to stir constantly from now on. Keep the candy thermometer in the mixture and keep stirring (while it bubbles away) until the thermometer hits 118 C (245 F). The recipe actually said 244, but let’s not split hairs here. It should be a lovely golden caramelly colour. If you want a firmer, chewier caramel, cook the candy until the temperature comes up to 120-125C. 

Pour into your prepared pan. Don’t scrape it from the bottom of the saucepan (no idea why not, the recipe says so).

Now the hard part. Leave the caramel alone. Overnight. Don’t worry, there is probably some left in the pan that you can scrape out and taste. If you are like me, you’ll probably get impatient and try and cut it early, but it really does need ages to set at room temperature and it apparently gets a smoother, silkier texture if left to cool and set at room temperature rather than in the fridge.

To cut it, tip it face down onto some baking paper, peel the foil away from the bottom (unless you are like me and didn’t grease the foil enough, in which case cut the foil away), and then cut into whatever size pieces you like using a greased knife.

If you cooked to 118C, your caramels will be very soft and you need to wrap them to keep their shape. They look very cute when wrapped (I just used baking paper in two stages- see below).

Wrap a strip as wide as the caramel around it once. Then place on a rectangle piece, wrap around, and twist the ends:

Voila!

But if you plan to eat them straight away, don’t care about shape, or you made them firmer, you don’t need to worry about this step (which I will admit is a tad fiddly)- just store them in an airtight container. The recipe says they will be good for two weeks, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. I found with previous glucose candy experiments that it doesn’t last as well as sugar candy.

My only other comment is that if you are making this for yourself, you might want to halve the recipe. There is no way I would want to eat this much caramel in two weeks by myself, as delicious as it is.

Enjoy!