World's Best Peanut Brittle!

Ingredients

1 cup white granulated sugar
1 cup white corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 stick margarine
2 cups raw peanuts
1 tsp. imitation vanilla
1 rounded tsp. soda

Candy thermometer
Large pot
Wooden spoon for stirring
Pam or cooking oil
Large cookie sheet

Instructions

Step 1
Mix sugar, syrup, water, and salt in pot.

Step 2
When thoroughly mixed, set burner to HIGH heat, and cook mixture to 235 degrees. (It is not necessary to stir up to this point.)

Step 3
Cut up 1/2 stick margarine into cooking conglomeration, stir thoroughly, and cook for 4 minutes (to let margarine completely liquefy).

Step 4
Now stir in raw peanuts, getting them fully covered with the boiling syrup. This will cool the boiling mixture to about 200 degrees and make it hard to stir, BUT YOU MUST NOW STIR CONTINUOUSLY (about every 10-15 seconds), and cook to 285 degrees. If you don't stir continuously, you will have burned peanut brittle.

Step 5
At 285 degrees, turn off the heat and stir in vanilla. Next stir in soda. Stir, stir, and stir some more so the soda gets mixed with all of the hot mixture. The mixture will froth--this is the minute carbon dioxide bubbles which make the peanut brittle porous so you can bite into it without breaking your teeth.

Step 6
When the soda is thoroughly mixed in, pour the mixture onto an oiled cookie sheet (I use Pam or equivalent spray). Spread the hot mixture quite thinly over the cookie sheet. In half an hour you should have some of the finest peanut brittle you've ever eaten.

[Credit: Liz Zelandais]