Peanut Brittle

Tired of spending a fortune on peanut brittle - make your own and dice with diabetes with every mouthful.

Ingredients:

• 60g Margarine
• 180g White Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Water
• 200g Golden Syrup
• 200g Salted Peanuts (yes, salted - the salt brings out the flavour. Experiment - try washing off the salt and see what you end up with)

Method:

Lightly grease a toffee tray with margarine. Put the margarine, white sugar and water in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring all of the time. When all of the margarine has melted, add the golden syrup. Continue to stir until the sugar has dissolved. Boil slowly, over a low heat, stirring occasionally.

You need to boil off enough water for the mixture to solidify when cooled to room temperature but you also need to keep the temperature of the mixture low enough during cooking to prevent burning. The test involves getting a sample of mixture on a teaspoon and dropping it into cold water - either in a cup or a saucer.

When the test yields a moderately hard result, add the peanuts. They will cool down the toffee and you need to heat them back up to roast them for a few minutes (remember that they will have already been roasted to some extent). Stirr continuously as they will burn if given the opportunity.

When the mixture has started boiling again, test the mixture for hardness as described above (some moisture will come out of the peanuts) and they should finish roasting when the hardness is right (this wants to be a little harder than the bonfire toffee as it is supposed to be brittle).

Carefully pour into a greased toffee tray making sure that the peanuts are distributed evenly and let cool. When cold, break up with a toffee hammer or the handle of a heavy knife or spoon.

Variations:

Add some orange oil or try adding small quantities of different types of nut.

Storage:

Break up and store in an airtight tin - peanut brittle is deliquescent so, unless you want to end up with a sugar solution, make sure that it is airtight.

Serving suggestions:

Eat straight from the tin - good TV slob food.