First up was Sugar-n-Cinnamon pecans. You know those kind you'll smell at the mall or a fair and then just HAVE to buy them to satisfy your craving?! I mixed together a few recipes for these and here's how you do it:
Sugar-n-Cinnamon Pecans
Ingredients
3 egg whites
1 T water
1 T vanilla extract
2 pounds pecan halves
2 cups white sugar
1.5 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Grease baking sheet.
2. In a mixing bowl, whip together the egg whites, vanilla, and water until frothy. In a separate bowl, mix together sugar, salt, and cinnamon.
3. Add pecans to egg whites, stir to coat the nuts evenly. Slowly add the mixed dry ingredients into the nuts and toss to coat well.
4. Spread the nuts out on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. This is important so they don't burn!
Since that went over so well I decided, I love peanut brittle let me see if it's possible to make that at home. Seriously, I did not even know that you could make this yourself! So I found a recipe on the internet that used the microwave and no special candy thermometer or odd gadgets. I read zillions of user comments on the recipe to get all the tips, so I'll summarize below what worked for me. It seems everyone's cooking times vary, so you may need to adjust depending on your microwave.
Peanut Brittle
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 cup salted spanish peanuts
1 T butter
1 t vanilla extract
1 t baking soda
Directions
1. Spray cookie sheet with non-stick spray (or use butter). I then turned on my oven to 350 degrees and let the cookie sheet warm in there. (I had read this from other users that it will help in the end when you pour the brittle on here).
2. Combine sugar and corn syrup in a 2 quart glass bowl (I used a 9x9 glass square pan) and microwave on high 3 minutes. Note: I read several reviews about dishes cracking, so be aware this gets hot and you need glass or something sturdy.
3. Stir in peanuts and microwave on high 3 minutes more. I just eyeballed this and used about 3/4 of the container, so was a little more than the 1 cup.
4. Stir in butter and vanilla and microwave for 1 minute.
5. Stir in baking soda until light and foamy. Pour onto cookie sheet and tilt cookie sheet around to try and spread the brittle. Do NOT try to use a spatula, knife, etc. to spread the brittle cause will just ruin in.
6. Cool completely and break into pieces and serve.
A few tips: Do NOT soak your glass dish immediately when done or it may shatter. But once it is cooled down, do soak it and your cleanup will be super easy! Act fast when adding the ingredients between your microwave sessions, you don't want the mixture to start cooling down. I also sprayed my spoon with non-stick spray in between each microwave session so that the brittle wouldn't end up terribly sticking to the spoon. I made another batch with cashews cause I LOVE cashews, but the spanish peanuts really tasted better in my opinion. Hope you give it a try and enjoy!!
