french burnt peanuts

My dad is the hardest person to buy for in the world. He has a lot of really cool hobbies, but he always just buys himself what he wants or needs. I guess that’s a good thing actually, since his hobbies are out of my price range! Anyway, it was his birthday yesterday and I went homemade. 🙂

He loves these strange, bumpy, red, candy-coated peanuts called French Burnt Peanuts. I have vivid childhood memories of these peanuts. He would buy one bag almost every Sunday on the way home from church. We would stop at this cute little grocery store and get some produce… and of course these peanuts. Us kids would beg from the back seat for him to share, and he would. But only one at a time. Since that little grocery store doesn’t exist anymore, it’s impossible to find FRESH burnt peanuts. You can usually find packaged ones at convenient stores or sometimes in bulk at certain grocery stores…….but they are all stale and chemically tasting. GROSS.

So, I decided a few years ago (when I couldn’t figure out what to get him) that there’s got to be a way to make these little suckers at home. So, I googled it and low and behold, there are a ton of recipes out there. And I’ve been making them ever since. They are tasty!

I think the only difference is that the ones you buy at the store are more shiny (like an M&M) whereas the homemade ones are matte. I don’t know how they get them shiny. Store bought ones are a little more bumpy, too. But that’s OK with me. I never understood the bumps. 🙂

When you make them at home you know what’s in them. In this case….organic sugar, peanuts and red food coloring. The store bought ones have weird chemicals in them and I think you can taste it. I looked up a few brands just now and checked out the ingredients. They include corn syrup (shock), artificial flavors (whatever that means), gum arabic (what?) and a ton of other things.

I’ve made them without the food coloring (to cut back on weird chemicals) and they taste identical, but they just didn’t look nostalgic enough for me. So, I figure if I’m using organic sugar I can use a little bit of red food coloring. 🙂

How to make French Burnt Peanuts………….

I found this recipe here on epicurean.com

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 cup raw redskin peanuts
red food coloring, a few drops

Directions:

Preheat oven to 275 F and spray a pan with vegetable oil. Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy saucepan. Cook in medium heat, stirring constantly, until moisture evaporate. Turn out onto jelly roll pan and separate nuts. Roast for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Cool and store in an airtight container.

Tips :
* Finding raw red redskin peanuts was difficult at first. I found them at Walmart the first few times I made these. But, we since we don’t go to Walmart anymore I had to find other raw red skin peanut providers. Now I know that you can find them in most grocery stores in the bulk isle. (but I’m sure Walmart still has them, they’re in the produce section) 🙂

* Also, while you’re stirring you’ll think the moisture will NEVER evaporate. It only takes about 10 or 15 minutes of stirring and it’ll happen. Just seems like longer. All of a sudden you’ll look into the pan and it will seem more powdery or matte than liquidy. Keep stirring for another minute, then put them in the oven.

After about 10 minutes……it will go from this………