Peanut Chikki – Brittle
Nutty and Crunchy Peanut Chikki or Peanut Brittle is something we prepare quite often during winter months or around Makar Sakranti time. It’s prepared with jaggery and peanuts, two main ingredients and makes a great snack to munch on.
They are easy to make, and with two ingredients it comes together in just under 20 minutes.
It’s one of the most popular things you see all over India around January when it’s time for Lohri, Makar Sakranti, etc. These festivals mark a very important time in India, the harvesting time. Eating Jaggery with peanuts, is also considered healthy during winters.
Jaggery is slightly healthier to sugar and makes a good caramel. It’s equally temperamental and sometimes all varieties of jaggery are not created equal. In India, we have special jaggery that is used for making chikki. I have used palm sugar in USA which is available in Thai grocery stores or Asian stores. I would highly recommend you find Kolhapuri jaggery to make brittle for best results.
In this recipe, I have used peanuts, but any other nuts work well too, like cashews, almond, dalia, even murmura or mamra/puffed rice, sesame seedds and this coconut powder etc.
My husband loves peanut chikki, so I often make it for him. In all honestly, I am not a big chikki fan. The store-bought ones are made with sugar or corn syrup, and so making it at home is much better. Anyways, jaggery is slightly better.
Ingredients you need for Peanut Chikki
Peanuts – Unsalted, raw, and roasted peanuts work the best. If you have peanuts with their skin on, then roast them first and let them cool down and then remove the skin. I prefer to buy skinless peanuts to save time. Use a food processor once the peanuts are roasted and cooled down, if you prefer fine texture then go for it. If you like some texture, then keep it coarse.
Jaggery – I have used Jaggery to sweeten this brittle. I do not recommend you use sugar, because it will need to be slightly different. Please use Kolhapuri jaggery or chikki jaggery.
Ghee – I have used small amount of ghee, but if you want to keep it vegan use an alternative neutral oil or coconut oil.
Some recipes add cardamom, but I do not like cardamom in chikki.
Tips –
It is very critical to keep all ingredients ready before you start making it. Timing is important.
The same way caramel is extremely temperamental and must be handled carefully, same applies to jaggery. So, be careful to handle it.
I have used jaggery in past, that has been not so good and has made dry peanut chikki. If that happens to you, specially while you are rolling the chikki, it won’t come together. Just warm up some milk and water like ¼ cup on stove top and add the brittle in it, break it down carefully and then cook the water off and then try to work around spreading the brittle.
At least, it won’t go to waste. It won’t have same texture as chikki but is edible. I am sharing this because I have been there.
Roll chikki on a silicone mat or parchment paper, it’s easy to work with.
It is important to make knife cuts while its still slightly warm then you can easily cut once it cools down.
Peanut Chikki/ Brittle
Ingredients
- 1 cup peanuts roasted unsalted
- ¾ -1 cup Jaggery
- 1 tbsp ghee
Instructions
- In a pan, dry roast peanuts. Let them cool down and if you need to remove skin, do it once cooled and then use a food processor to process the peanuts. Depending on your preferred texture, ground the nuts. I refer roasted skinless peanuts.
- In a heavy bottomed pan, combine jaggery and 1 tbsp water and bring it to a boil.
- Cook the jaggery, stirring constantly. Once the jaggery reached hardball stage on candy thermometer 265F, also changing the color of the syrup.
- The traditional way of checking consistency is to drop tiny amount of jaggery into some water, try to pick it up that piece of jaggery – it would have solidified, and it snaps its done. If it is sticky, it is not done. It needs to be cooked for a little bit longer.
- If the tiny jaggery ball snaps in water, immediately take it off the heat. Add roasted peanuts, ghee and mix until peanuts are well coated in jaggery mixture.
- You will have to work quickly. Jaggery will start setting at this stage. Transfer the mixture to silicone mat and cover it with parchment paper and roll it out to ¼ inch thickness.
- Remove parchment paper and using a knife mark/cut chikki into squares.
- Let it completely cool and then snap the pieces with your hands and store it.