Honey Peanut Brittle Recipe

I’m so pleased to bring you this delicious honey peanut brittle recipe, friends. Easy to make with a candy thermometer, it’s the perfect candy for honey-roasted nut lovers.

And just because the recipe calls for peanuts doesn’t mean it won’t work as well for cashews, pecans, or even pepitas. Use your favorite nut to customize it.

You may also want to check out my peanut butter fudge recipe, which also pairs peanuts and honey. And for ease of browsing, you can find all my candy recipes in one place. Let’s get right to it.

Watch my best peanut brittle web story here.

PCO recipes are so clearly written and include such helpful tips – I’m so glad to have found you. Thank you, Jenni!

Reader Teresa

✔️Skill Level: Intermediate
✔️Skills: Cooking Sugar, stirring a very hot mixture, pouring candy onto Silpat
✔️Type: Candy
✔️Number of Ingredients: 7
✔️Prep Time: 5 minutes
✔️Cook Time: 15 minutes
✔️Yield: 2 pounds of peanut brittle

Jump Straight to the Recipe

Why This Recipe Works

Peanut brittle is an easy candy to make, and this recipe is no exception.

It’s also easy to vary. Add extracts at the end of cooking, add spices, or change up your nuts. You can even make a mixed nut brittle.

This recipe makes the perfect amount to spread out onto a half-sheet pan.

The candy weighs in at around 2 pounds, which is a generous amount.

Even so, you can double the recipe if you’d like with no issues as long as you have a large enough pan.

The balance of honey and sugar is really nice, also. You can definitely taste the honey flavor, but it’s overly assertive.

There’s also enough salt in it to bring out the nuttiness and cut a bit of the sweetness.

If this recipe sounds like a winner and you decide to make it, I have a favor to ask:

How to Make Honey Nut Brittle

If you already know how to make peanut brittle and just want to try my version, you can jump straight to the recipe.

Ingredients and Substitutions

See the ingredient descriptions below the image. I will also add substitutions where applicable.

• Sugar: This provides the sweetness and the crunch when you cook it to the correct temperature. You could substitute half the sugar with brown sugar if you’d like.
• Honey: A lighter-flavored honey works better, especially if you don’t like an aggressive honey flavor. You can also use maple syrup for a different flavor. Or just use more corn syrup for a more neutral peanut flavor.
• Corn Syrup: Adds a bit of sweetness but is primarily there to help avoid crystallization since you have to stir nuts into the candy. Without it, you could end up with a sandy mess. Which will still be tasty. It just won’t be peanut brittle.
• (Water): I add about 1/4 cup of water at the beginning of cooking to moisten the sugar and make it melt more evenly. Consider adding a little extra flavor here by substituting some hard cider or regular apple cider
• Peanuts: You can use any peanuts you like here. I used big old fancy Virginia peanuts because they look pretty in the brittle. Feel free to use your favorite nuts and/or seeds or a mixture. The recipe calls for 9 oz by weight, but the recipe should be able to accomodate up to 11-12 oz, by weight.
• Salt: Tempers the sweetness and brings out the nutty flavor.
• Butter: Not strictly necessary, but it does help to provide a little bit of a creamy bite as well as some buttery flavor.
• Baking soda: The baking soda reacts in the super hot sugar, foaming up like mad. This is what lightens the candy and keeps it from being too hard and crunchy. Those tiny little air bubbles make a big difference. Do NOT subsitute baking powder.

Procedure

This is a pretty straightforward recipe. Here’s what you’ll do:

1) Mix sugar, honey, corn syrup, salt, and water together and stir to get the sugar wet.

2) Bring candy up to a boil and cook until it reaches 265F.

3) Stir in peanuts and butter.

4) Cook to 310F. Off the heat, stir in the baking soda thoroughly.

5) Pour candy out onto a Silpat-lined half-sheet pan and spread out with an offset spatula.

6) Once the candy cools completely, break it up into pieces.

Note: allow at least a couple of hours for your honey peanut brittle to cool completely before breaking into pieces.

Equipment You Will Need

The most important thing you can own to make candy is an accurate thermometer. I know lots of people like one that clips to the side of the pan, but those aren’t always completely accurate, especially if you’re not stirring the candy.

With a good instant-read thermometer, you can sort of “stir” the candy with the probe to get a better idea of the temperature of the contents of your pan.

And speaking of pans, for safety, it’s best to always use a pan that is much larger than you think you need.

This recipe works well in a 3-quart saucepan. To make a double recipe, use at least a 5-quart Dutch oven.

Silicone baking mats can be expensive and are not always the best item for the job, but there really is no substitute when it comes to candy making.

You can purchase an OG Silpat, but there are many other brands out there as well at other price points.

Pro Tips for Making This (or Any) Candy

Sugar can be very temperamental, so always make sugar on clear, high-pressure, low-humidity days. Humidity is the candy maker’s nemesis.

When spreading candy onto the baking sheet, spray your offset spatula with some pan spray to keep the candy from sticking. This will not affect how the candy sets up.

Remember that candy is very, very hot. Since you boil all the water out of it, the temperature is free to soar above the boiling point of water.

So, if some candy splashes onto the counter, just leave it until it cools.

The best way I’ve found to clean a pot after making hard candy is to fill it with water and heat it on the stove to melt any candy adhering to the sides of the pan. Then, just pour it out.

Adjusting Temperature for High Altitude Candy Making

A reader recently commented saying that his candy tasted great but had the wrong texture. It was too hard. He did his own research and realized that it was because the temperature called for was too hot at his altitude (5000 ft above sea level).

This information will help a lot of you, so thank you so much, dear reader. And I know your next batch of candy will be Perfection!

Here’s the rule: reduce the temperature by 1 degree for every degree below sea level boiling temperature of 212F.

Make Adjustments for your Elevation Like This:

• Take the temperature of your boiling water.
• Subtract 1 degree from the target temperature for every degree below 212F your water boils.

If your water boils at 208F, then you will have to stop cooking your sugar at 230F (4 degrees below 234F since your water boils at 4F below 212F).

For reference, I found this Altitude Conversion Chart in a booklet titled “The Art of Candy Making” from the USU Extension/Utah County in Provo, Utah.

Peanut Brittle Q & A

Serving Suggestions

1. Spread it thinly to cool, and you can break it up into shards and use it for garnish.
2. Don’t spread it out, and you can grate it and make “brittle dust.” This is nice because it sort of melts in your mouth.
3. Bake pieces into brownies or peanut butter cookies.
4. Fold it into French vanilla ice cream. The candy will soften and turn into a caramel sauce surrounding the nuts. Like a peanut version of pralines and cream.
5. Fold wee pieces into mousse or ganache and use it as cake filling/frosting.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

A Note About Measurements

My recipes are almost all written by weight, including liquids, unless otherwise specified.

For accuracy and consistency of results, I encourage you to buy–and use–a kitchen scale.

I promise that baking and cleanup will be so much quicker and easier.

This is the scale that I recommend for home use. I have owned and used one for years.

Love Honey Peanut Brittle? Please Rate and Review and Spread the Word!

Thanks for spending some time with me today. Enjoy the honey peanut brittle, you guys.

Take care, y’all.