Okay, so my recent cupcake idea (posted the other day-the one before this one- the apple cinnamon cupcakes) actually branched off from my desire to have vegan “honey” roasted peanuts. I had thought it would be cool to try and replicate Bee Free Honee which is made from apples. Then I decided after some research to add some cinnamon to it, which resulted in the cupcake idea. However, I still had a hankering for the peanuts, and had plenty of leftover apple cinnamon syrup from the cupcakes. (I had also put the syrup on some pancakes I made, which was delicious!)

I’ve also been toying with getting vegan peanut brittle I’ve been seeing at my local grocery store, except it has some ingredients I try to avoid like high fructose corn syrup and such in it…So this was a good alternative.

The basic skeleton of this recipe came from Miss Kitchen Witch, another vegan blog. You should try that recipe, too!

I’m re-writing the recipe I used even though much of it is similar to make it easier for you.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound unsalted dry roasted peanuts (I’ve never seen blanched peanuts around me so this is the next best thing. I think it reduces the cooking time slightly due to them being roasted instead of blanched).
• 1/3 cup apple cinnamon syrup from my Apple Cinnamon Cupcake recipe
• 3 tbsp apple butter, store bought or homemade
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance buttery sticks
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 tbsp coconut palm sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray a hefty coating of cooking oil on top.
3. In a saucepan, combine the syrup, apple butter, Earth Balance, and salt on medium low heat until the Earth Balance melts.
4. Stir in the vanilla extract.
5. Place peanuts in a large bowl (one that won’t melt when you pour in the sauce) and coat completely with the sauce.
6. Transfer to the baking sheet.
7. Spread out in a single layer.
8. Heat for 5 minutes, take out, then stir with a wooden spoon. Be sure to keep them in a single layer.
9. Continue baking for 5 minutes at a time and then stirring until about 20 minutes have passed. At twenty minutes they should be done, I could tell by eating one. I think the peanuts would get a bit crispy and burned past this. But feel free to experiment, they may need an additional 5-10 minutes more.