Creamy Peanut Pralines a la Shirley Corriher

These pralines came out well, with a firm, caramel-like texture, rather than a grainy sugar toothache. We substituted dry roasted peanuts for the pecans and almonds Shirley Corriher uses for Creamy Pralines from her book Cookwise in order to fit a dinner theme we're working on.

As Shirley says, the corn syrup slows the crystallization, but requires a slightly higher temperature to set firmly. Since the peanuts were already roasted and salted, we didn't roast them with butter and salt like she does. I've converted her imperial volume measurements to metric to make it easier for us to reproduce.

250 g  Dry Roasted Peanuts (2 C)

 25 g  Butter (2 Tbs)

235 g  Light Brown Sugar (1 C packed)

155 g  Granulated White Sugar (3/4 C)

 80 ml Light Corn Syrup (1/3 C)

120 ml Canned Evaporated Milk (1/2 C)

  5 ml Vanilla Extract (1 tsp)

Set out two Silpat nonstick sheets, or lightly oiled foil or parchment.

Bring all ingredients except Vanilla to boil, and continue to heat until mixture reaches 115C/240F.

Remove from heat and let rest 5 minutes (our temperature dropped to 105C/221F); add Vanilla.

Stir with a stiff spatula for about 4 minutes until the mixture thickens noticeably, including the center. 

Immediately spoon out onto the Silpats in heaping tablespoon sized dollops. A #70 disher worked well, until the mixture in the pot became too thick as it cooled; I switched to pairs of spoons to scoop out then slide the mixture off the spoon. You might want two people doing this to work more rapidly, one on each Silpat.

Let sit until solid.