Good-bye 2013, Hello 2014

I hope you will have a "Stitches" kind of day to start the New Year.................

Merry Christmas To All !!!

Peanut Brittle

I have been on a peanut brittle rampage and I'm not done yet but taken a few days off from it. So far, I have made 6 batches.  I made the peanut brittle for one of my mini-quilting groups for an little Christmas gift. I also tied a little Christmas Tree pin (it's lights up) to the package.  It's not hard to make and really takes very little time, the hard part is the clean up to get ready to make another batch.

This bowl is the one I use, heaven forbid, if it ever would break. It's a Corning Ware 1 3/4 qt. bowl. I have tried a couple of other bowls and they just don't work as well for me. I have made my Peanut Brittle in the microwave for many years. I started with my Tappan microwave because a cookbook came with it, with the recipe in it. Now my microwave is a GE Profile-Spacemaker XL1400. It's a higher wattage so I had to tweak my recipe when I changed microwaves. Here is my current recipe if you are interested in it.                               PEANUT BRITTLE
Power Level: 100%       Total Cooking Time: about 16 minutes

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup dry roasted peanuts
 (or cashews, I like the smoked Almonds too!)
1 t. vanilla flavoring and 1 t. butter
1 t. baking soda
1. Stir together the sugar, water, and corn syrup in a 2 qt. casserole. Microwave on high (100%) for 11 minutes.
2. Stir in nuts, microwave on high (100%) for 2 minutes.
3. Stir in vanilla and butter. Microwave on high (100%) for another 2 minutes or until hard crack stage is reached. This is when I test it, in ice water.
4. Add baking soda, stir until light and foamy.
5. Pour mixture onto a lightly buttered cookie sheet. Spread to about 1/4 inch thickness.. You have to do this step rather quickly and be careful about spreading it out too much. I don't like to lose all the foamy because that's what makes it easy to eat.  Cool, and break into pieces.

(If you have a lower wattage microwave, this is what the original recipe called for in cooking. In Step 1, cook for 12-14 minutes. Step 2, cook for 4-6 minutes. Step 3, cook for additional 1-2 minutes. As long as you test your candy in Step 3 in ice water and it doesn't stick to your teeth, it should be fine)  Good Luck and let me know how your candy turns out...Sew until next time, I hope you have a Stitches kind of day...