Groundnut Sweet
Aperçu
Groundnut sweet is peanuts set in caramelised sugar and cut into blocks, and it is made from three things: groundnuts, sugar and water. In Cameroon it is sold by the piece from roadside tables and market stalls, cut from a slab with a knife, and it is among the cheapest sweet things available anywhere in the country. Groundnuts are grown across Cameroon and across the West African savannah generally, and the confection follows the crop. Similar sweets exist wherever groundnuts are abundant and sugar is affordable, which covers a great deal of the continent and much of the world beyond it, and each region has arrived at its own version independently. What makes it work is the contrast in texture rather than any complexity of flavour. The sugar sets to a hard, glassy shell around nuts that stay crisp inside it, so a piece shatters rather than chews. It is the kind of sweet that gets eaten by the handful without anyone deciding to, and it is made in slabs precisely because it is sold and eaten in that way: broken off, handed round, gone.
Note de Patrimoine AFN
Groundnut sweet belongs to the West African confections built on the groundnut, a crop cultivated across the savannah belt since the arrival of the American peanut through Atlantic trade from the 16th century. Its earliest documented date in Cameroon is uncertain.
Ingrédients
Les mentions alimentaires sont fournies par les contributeurs à titre indicatif. Elles ne sont pas vérifiées par AFN et dépendent des produits que vous achetez. En cas d’allergie grave, vérifiez vous-même chaque ingrédient. Cuisine, allergies et votre propre jugement
Préparation
- 1
Put the groundnuts, water and sugar in a pot and set it over the heat. Scale the quantities to how much you want to make.
- 2
Cook until the sugar caramelises, turns sticky and browns.
- 3
Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar starts to dry and becomes difficult to stir.
- 4
Leave it on the heat for about a minute and a half more, then take the pot off and let it cool completely.
- 5
Put the pot back on the heat briefly to warm the base and release the slab.
- 6
Turn the slab out of the pot.
- 7
Cut into pieces with a knife.
Notes de l’Africook
Notes personnelles de Nympha Nzeribe- Watch the sugar rather than the clock. It moves from caramel to burnt in under a minute, and burnt sugar is bitter through the whole slab with no way back.
- Keep stirring right through the drying stage. This is what coats every nut rather than leaving some bare and others in a lump of sugar.
- Cut it while it is warm rather than cold. Fully cooled it shatters unevenly instead of cutting into clean pieces.
- Roast the groundnuts lightly before they go in if they are raw. It deepens the flavour considerably and costs nothing.
- It keeps for weeks in an airtight container. Humidity is the enemy, since the sugar shell softens and goes tacky.
Questions fréquentes
Why is my groundnut sweet chewy instead of hard?
The sugar did not go far enough. It has to pass beyond sticky into the stage where it dries out and becomes hard to stir, and stopping while it is still glossy and pourable gives a soft toffee rather than a brittle. The other cause is humidity in storage, which softens a properly made slab over a few days.
Can I use roasted or salted peanuts?
Roasted, yes, and they give a better flavour than raw. Salted peanuts also work and produce a salted caramel effect that many people prefer, though you should rub off the excess salt first. What matters more is that the nuts are dry, since any moisture on them will interfere with the sugar setting hard.
How do I get the slab out of the pot?
Warm the base of the pot briefly over the heat once the slab has cooled completely. That melts the thin layer in contact with the metal and the whole thing releases in one piece. Do not try to lever it out cold, and do not warm it so long that the slab starts to soften through.
How long does groundnut sweet keep?
Several weeks in an airtight container kept somewhere dry. The sugar is doing the preserving, so there is nothing to spoil. What ends it is moisture: in a humid kitchen the shell absorbs water, goes tacky and loses its snap, so seal it properly rather than leaving it on a plate.
Avis
4 avis
My first attempt got slightly burnt sha because my stove heat was too high while the sugar was caramelising. Second time around I kept the flame low once it turned sticky and it came out perfect. That trick of putting the pot back on heat briefly to free the slab saved me a lot of scraping o.
Had to pop down to a local international grocer to find proper raw groundnuts for this. I nearly panicked when the sugar started drying out and became so stiff to turn with the wooden spoon, but warming the base of the pan at the very end released the whole slab effortlessly. Tastes amazing.
stirring this once the sugar starts to dry up is real arm exercise o! my grandmother used to make this exact groundnut sweet for us when we were young. that rich caramel smell brought back so many childhood memories.
Picked up raw peanuts from the halal market here in Minneapolis to try this. Made it with white sugar first and warming the pot bottom to loosen the slab worked like magic. Abeg do you think brown sugar would work too, or will it change how it dries and hardens?