Salted Peanuts

Gee, hasn’t salted caramel taken off!?  Everyone seems to be right into this new sensation and can you blame them?  It really is the best of both worlds.  Sweet gooey caramel, savoury salt breaking through the sweetness.  Who on earth came up with the idea?  Is it really something new?

I think back to my childhood and shopping with my family.  We would head off to JC Penny and Sears at the shopping mall and I was always so excited.  My family didn’t have a lot of money but we did get small treats from time to time and I would savoury whatever it was.

My favourite memory of treats was when we went to the nut and candy bar of the department store as I was a lover of nuts.  I always went for the toffee coated peanuts.  They were always slightly warm, very sweet, buttery and, you guessed it, salty!  I would put them in my mouth one at a time and suck the buttery sweet coating off to reveal the salty peanut hidden inside.  Now this wasn’t just last week or even last year, this was over forty years ago.

That got me thinking about other sweet and salty sensations I enjoyed growing up with, of which two come to mind.  I remember chocolate covered pretzels, biting through the creamy sweet chocolate into a salty crunchy pretzel and Cracker Jacks.  I would go through the box and make sure I got some crunchy, sweet caramel popcorn and a peanut in every bite so I could get that sweet and salty feeling and taste in my mouth.

So this new taste sensation maybe just isn’t as new as we think.  So what!  It still tastes good and that is why I am sharing my variation of the caramel slice recipe with you as when you add some salted peanuts to the caramel slice it takes the recipe to a new level and better still, tastes great!

Salted Peanut Caramel Slice (variation)

Follow the recipe for the caramel slice (https://aroamingappetite.com/2015/06/16/my-caramel-slice/) but add 150 grams of salted peanuts, sprinkled over the caramel before baking as normal.

Salted peanuts added to caramel to form another layer to your basic caramel slice.

If you’re not that into salted nuts you can replace the salted peanuts with the nut of your choice but remember to break down/chop bigger nuts to make slicing and eating easier.

Caramel Slice – Salted Peanut Variation

Enjoy and experiment.  That is how these new sensations come about.