Stop for a moment, close your eyes and imagine this: tender, crunchy base, opulent, oozing salted caramel centre and a crisp, peanut brittle top. This is how you make the ultimate salted caramel peanut slice.
Do you know who I feel sorry for? The poor souls who are allergic to peanuts. Life must suck for them. No peanut butter, no cookies like these, no satay, no gado gado… in fact travel becomes tricky too.
As I’ve alluded to, Thailand and Indonesia are just two of many countries that use peanuts in so many of their dishes… and then there’s the plane snacks… but I digress.
For us lucky un-afflicted, this recipe combines two of my favourite ingredients – salted caramel and crunchy peanut butter.
How to make salted caramel peanut slice
Credit for this one needs to go to the Woolworths’ Fresh monthly magazine, where I gleaned the idea for this. I have made a few changes though – hopefully for the better.
I’ve changed some of the cooking times and methods, and added a little white miso paste to the filling. This gives a delicious salty umami to the caramel.
I call this kind of recipe a ‘foot farewell dish’. Because it’s likely you’ll never see you feet again after eating this, so it’s time to say your goodbyes!
Full disclosure, this uses an extraordinary amount of butter (we’re talking 185g!), but do what we do and just don’t think about it!
Here’s what you need
For the base
– 1 cup plain flour
– 1/2 cup brown sugar
– 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
– 125g butter, melted
For the filling
– 395g tin of condensed milk
– 2tbsp golden syrup
– 2tbsp crunchy peanut butter
– 1tbsp white miso paste
– 60g butter, melted
For the topping
– 1/2 cup brown sugar
– 2tbsp golden syrup
– 100g butter, melted
– 1 cup salted roasted peanuts
Here’s what you do
1. Measure out all your ingredients first – this comes together pretty fast – and pre-heat the oven to 175ºC. Then grease and line a baking tin about 18cm x 28cm and at least 3cm deep. My pan was too long, so I used blind-baking beads to shorten it – quite a balancing act.
2. Make the base by combining flour, sugar and coconut in a bowl. Add the melted butter and stir until well combined, then put the mixture in the pan. Flatten it out by pressing with the back of a spoon.
3. Bake in the oven for about 8 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.
4. Make the filling by combining all the ingredients in a saucepan on a medium heat for about 3 minutes until it’s darker golden and slightly bubbling. carefully pour the filling over the base, smoothing it out to evenly cover the base.
5. Put the pan back in the oven for about 3 minutes or until the filling browns slightly at the edges. Don’t overcook this part. Remove from the oven and set to one side.
6. Make the topping by adding the sugar and syrup to the melted butter in a pan and stirring over a low-medium heat for about 5 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the sauce has thickened. This is meant to be a kind of brittle, so make sure the sauce has cooked down properly.
7. Add the peanuts then pour carefully into the baking tin, spreading the topping out evenly.
8. Increase the oven to 180ºC and bake for a further 7-8 minutes until the slice is bubbling around the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to completely cool in the pan.
9. Trim any uneven edges (baker’s tax) and slice into squares.
These babies are so rich, you can’t really eat too many in one go, so calorie-wise, it’s kind of self-regulating. If you cut this carefully, you can get about 48-60 small bitesize squares out if this… or fewer much bigger ones!
We were careful to share these salted caramel peanut slices with friends to help with our own strength of will. I’d recommend you do the same!
Ethel Thompson
I have made this, haven’t cut it yet but I think the pan I made it in is to small.
Mr Romance
Hi Ethel. Thank you for trying our recipe! I hope you manage to get it out of the pan ok. I had the opposite problem and used a pan that was too big. Ended up having to build a kind of dam with baking paper and blind-baking beads. Just about got away with it. If the slice is too thick though, it might need a bit longer in the oven to cook through – or a bit more time to set.
Good luck though. Let me know how you get on,