Peanut Brittle= a success this time!

Before Christmas I was really annoyed because I had tried and failed at making peanut brittle, it just went too a gooey sticky mixture and didn't set at all! I was even more annoyed because I had followed the recipe correctly and had wanted to make the brittle for gifts, plus I had used up loads of ingredients for it!

I used this Nigella Lawson recipe which is found in her Christmas book (would recommend, especially if you entertain a lot over Christmas)!

After my failed attempt I discovered I wasn't the only one struggling with the recipe and that I should invest in a sugar thermometer...so I did and last night was the first time I'd tried it out.

Ignore the 'let it boil for 5 minutes' on the recipe and follow what the thermometer says, I had to get it up to 154C to get a 'hard crack' mixture and this took much, much longer than 5 minutes no wonder it didn't set last time, why didn't they just write that in the recipe in the first place, I am very impatient with things like this so last time I just timed 5 minutes and thought, that must be fine and plonked it on the baking sheet!

Anyway I would definitely recommend buying a sugar thermometer if you like things like this, jam, and honeycomb recipes (which I will try again soon too-watch out for that one). I got mine from Lakeland and for £7.49 I thought it was quite a bargain!

Here's the final result:

Not the best photo it was 11pm last night!

Here's hoping my Dad will be happy as it's accompanying his birthday present today, and I think he was quite gutted the peanut brittle was missing from the Christmas hamper. I just hope he doesn't break his tooth on it like my partner did last night whilst chipping away at the mixture left on the spoon!!