Amanuensis Monday - Marilyn Brown Johnson's Recipe for Peanut Brittle

Dear FOLKS,

With many baking, cooking and candy-making for the holidays, I decided to share one of my mother's favorite candy recipes.

My mother, Marilyn Eileen Johnson née Brown (1928-2006) was a great cook. OK, she wasn't a fancy cook, but whatever she made was so tasty. She liked to make candy and bake cookies for the holidays. I can't begin to count the number of gift exchanges, where she made up batches of her famous peanut brittle recipe to give to family and friends.

IMAGE: Peanut Brittle photo taken by
Cooking Cinderella and uploaded to
http://www.flikr.com.

IMAGE: Marilyn  Johnson's Peanut Brittle

recipe card (front). From my mother's

recipe card box.

IMAGE: Marilyn  Johnson's Peanut Brittle

recipe card (back). From my mother's

recipe card box.

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Peanut Brittle

- - - - - -

2 c [cups] sugar

1/4 t [teaspoon] salt

1/4 t [teaspoon] soda

1 c [cup] peanuts

Melt sugar in iron skillet on very high heat. After sugar begins to melt reduce heat. Stir with wooden spoon continually. After completely melted, take off heat add salt, soda and peanuts. When mixture begins to thicken, pour into greased pan.

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A few clarifications to make this recipe:

Use granulated sugar and baking soda. It is best using shelled and skinned peanuts; roasted Virginia or Spanish peanuts are best. Marilyn wasn't selective about salted or unsalted peanuts as she was more concerned about having no skins. With today's salt awareness, you might decide to use the required salt on plain roasted peanuts or omit the salt if using a salted variety of these favorite goobers.

Marilyn would grease a jelly-roll baking pan. It looks like a cookie sheet with a 1/2" short edge on sides. With the back of a wooden-spoon, she would spread the mixture until it covered most of the surface of the baking pan. Then let it still until it cools down and hardens. Then comes the fun part... using something like a kitchen mallet, hit on it until it breaks into manageable pieces.

The cast iron skillet she used would be very hot, so after pouring out the candy mixture, let the skillet slowly cool to room temperature. She would move it to the back burner on the stove and let is just sit there until it is room temperature. Then to clean it, since the candy leaves some brittle behind, run hot water over it. At this point, she put it under the hot water faucet and let the hot water do most of the cleanup work.

One last thought, to keep the candy from getting sticky, it is best to package it in air-tight containers.

It was fun to go through Mom's recipe-box today to select this particular card. Seeing that a number of the cards were hand-written while others were clippings from magazines and newspapers made me stop an think how things are changing from that. For the most part, I am using online recipes when I need one and by my preference, I will print this recipe out using full-sized printer paper.

In addition, it is fun to note that this is a typical 3x5 inch recipe/index card and that the handwriting is indeed Marilyn's.

Since next Monday is a holiday, I have to admit that I'll be spending time with family. I want to wish you a very Merry Christmas. We will pick up a new-to-us document to transcribe in the New Year.

Amanuensis Monday is a weekly blog theme that was started by John Newmark, the author of TransylvanianDutch blog. John defines Amanuensis as "A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another." I also appreciate the good work and format examples of San Diego genealogist Randy Seaver of the blog Genea-musings. Thanks, guys.

While this document was a fun break from the routine projects, I am reminded that transcribing helps me to learn what a document contains. I have learned over time that I have a tendency to "skim" over an item; a bad trait for a researcher who needs to learn even the smallest details documented records contain. Transcribing helps me to slow down; to capture all aspects of the paper in hand. It also gives me a better opportunity to share the document with you.

Thank you for stopping by today and letting me share this with you. I also hope that your week has had a good start. And as always, I hope you have a great day. Again, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

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Copyright (c) 2017, Darlene M. Steffens