Peanut Brittle (The Philippines)

If any of you have ever tried to make peanut brittle, you know the process is not overly complicated.  That is except for the part where you have to make caramel. Ingredient-wise, I love caramel, peanuts and sesame seeds so nothing to worry about. The challenge was in the recipe itself.  

I've never tried making caramel before but Soph and I are both fans of the Great British Bake Off and so we know that it's a very tricky process.  

The book also recognises how tough it is but gives great advice on making it. Apparently, the trick is being patient and resisiting the urge to stir it.  This is harder than it sounds.  In the process of making this I learnt that I have very little patience - luckily Soph does.

So to make caramel you mix sugar and water and boil it in a pan until it turns golden brown.  It will bubble a lot and you can swirl it from time to time but apparently you shouldn't stir it too much.  

With Soph keeping me in check and questioning me every time I reached for a spoon, we actually managed to make the caramel quite easily. Soph said she thinks it could have cooked a little longer but the pressure was too much for me to handle and I had to take it off.  

When it's ready you basically just chuck in the peanuts and sesame seeds, pour it onto a tray to set, and wait for it to cool.  

This didn't take long at all and within a half hour we were ready to break it up. 

This stage was quite fun but terribly messy.  We broke up the slab with our meat hammer which worked very well but shards of caramel and peanut ended up all over our kitchen.  The recipe creates a fair bit of mess but mostly it's the sweeping up afterwards that takes the most time.  

The end result was some very tasty peanut brittle. I live in fear of breaking a tooth on the stuff but it is a very nice treat to have in the house.  The sesame seeds were a nice addition and the recipe wasn't all that tricky so if you don't mind the clean-up I'd definitely recommend you try it.