Home › Recipes › Peanut Brittle

Peanut Brittle

Mix 3 cups of granulated sugar with 1 scant cup boiling water, and 1/4 teaspoon soda. Let it melt over slow fire. Cook gently without stirring until a little drop in cold water hardens quickly. Add 1 cup roasted, shelled and skinned peanuts, with as little use of a spoon as possible. Turn the mixture into buttered pans and cut while hot. The brittleness of the candy depends much upon the scant use of the spoon. To stir sugar or candy is to invite granulation. Simply melt sugar, then add nuts. ALUME A Fireless Cookers The use of the fireless cooker is spreading rapidly on account of its saving in fuel, time, work and worry. It consists of a box or chest packed with a good non-conductor of heat, into which a kettle containing food heated to a boiling point is placed. The lid, consisting of the same non-conducting material, is closed, and heat cannot escape, consequently the water in the kettle remains at the boiling point for several hours, and food in the water is bound to cook the same as if it were on the stove. These cookers are now being manufactured by many firms. Some of them, however, are not as good as home-made ones. A fireless cooker can easily be made by packing excelsior in a square box or bushel basket tightly around the kettle to be used, and on removing the kettle, cotton cloth can be placed over the excelsior and tacked to remain, and a cushion of excelsior made to fit over the top. About 3 inches of excelsior should be left solid at the bottom, and the sides of the box lined with newspapers before putting the excelsior therein. About 4 inches of excelsior should be left between the kettle and the sides of the box, and the same kettle should always be used so as to fit snugly in its own nest.

In the fireless cooker, there is no evaporation. All the goodness and flavor of the food is retained by this slow and thorough mode of cooking. Onions and cabbage may be cooked without the odor permeating the house. While doing the dinner dishes, you can cook what you want for supper, put the kettles in the fireless cooker, and attend to other things, or go out, without the slightest anxiety, and at supper time find it hot and deliciously cooked.

You can cook the oatmeal, or any cereal for 5 minutes after supper, put it in the fireless cooker, and find it thoroughly cooked and hot at any time in the morning needed. You can cook a boiled dinner, on a hot summer day, without any odor or heat in your kitchen. All this can be done on a fireless cooker.

We give below a few directions for cooking with this new cooker, which will enable the beginner to avoid loss and worry by mistakes.