Beery good Peanut Brittle

Here's an interesting twist on peanut brittle that I tried out using Alaska Brew Company's Seasonal Baltic Porter Ale. Its got a very good taste and I like the spice of the cayenne mixed with the sweet of the sugar.

• 1 C toasted peanuts
• ½ tsp flaked sea salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 T cold butter, diced
• 1 C sugar
• ¼ C light corn syrup
• 1 C dark beer
• 1/8 tsp chipotle powder

Butter baking pan or line with silpat, set aside. Mix first 4 ingredients, set aside. In a large saucepan, mix beer, sugar, corn syrup, and chipotle powder. Boil over moderate heat for 12 min until golden in color. Stir in peanut mixture and quickly spread on prepared pan. Let cool and break into small pieces. Store in an airtight jar.

I've made it twice. The first it wouldn't harden up so I had to pop it in the oven to reheat it and poured in on a foil-wrapped pan. The second time I got out the old cookbook and followed the directions with the candy thermometer, heated it to 300 and got a big mountain of candy-hunk. I popped that in the oven to heat up and again, poured it in a pan and when it cooled it was the right thickness and tasted good but it wasn't clear like it should have been. Plus I didn't realize that my plastic stirring spoon at melted when it got so hot until the candy cooled and there were plastic strands mixed in with the peanuts when the brittle cooled. Enough to take out a tooth!

So I suggest that if you have a recipe you like you should use it and just substitute the beer for water or at least follow you directions. I'm not going to try again, although I did enjoy drinking the left-over beer that didn't go into the brittle.