A Little Nostalgia

While we were in Louisiana last weekend, we went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner one night and on the dessert bar they had these sugar coated peanuts that tasted just like these pink peanut patties that we used to get as kids. They are so good! I haven't seen them in ages, I'm sure you can still get them out there somewhere. They're one of mom's favorite candies. They're very similar to a pecan praline, but are a little more chewy. When we got back I started looking for a recipe because I was sure someone out there loved them too and had replicated them. I found this recipe and decided to give it a whirl yesterday.

Cooking to Soft Ball, still got 40 more degrees to go. It takes a while and seems like it'll never get there, but it eventually does. When it does get there, and you add the powdered sugar, this stuff gets super thick and gooey and it's so hard to stir but you gotta keep it moving so the sugar crystals form. When your arm is about to burst into flames from the burning, it'll finally start losing gloss and then you know it's time to drop them!

I buttered some cookie cutters and filled those first and then just dropped the rest by spoonful on the parchment. I removed the cookie cutters after it had set enough to keep shape but not completely cool and they slid right out and I had some really cute shaped patties. The preliminary tasting was promising, After they had set undisturbed a few hours I ate one and it was amazing! The texture was so close, maybe not perfectly perfect, but really really close and the taste was nearly spot on. The key is to used RAW peanuts, not roasted ones. It makes a huge flavor and texture difference. I think these will have to go on my yearly Christmas candy list. I'm sure the color of them would have been better if I used red food coloring instead of pink and I didn't add very much, flavor and texture was the important part.