Butterfingers

Butterfinger is a candy bar made by Nestlé. The bar consists of a flaky, orange-colored center—somewhat similar in taste and texture to peanut brittle—that is coated in compound chocolate. The confection "center" of a Butterfinger is actually a "laminated" product in the style of croissant dough. Peter Greweling has a good formula and description of the technique on p.198 for "leaf croquant". It's not the easiest technique as you need to keep the "dough" warm enough to roll and fold several times in order to get the proper lamination. It's definitely delicious and if you have the space, worth the effort. (Note: the recipes below do not use this technique, but instead make a kind of peanut brittle. See Butterfingers using leaf croquant)

Butterfinger was invented by the Curtiss Candy Company of Chicago, Illinois. The company held a public contest to choose the name of the candy. The name is a slang term used to describe a clumsy person, often in sporting events to describe an athlete who can't hold onto the ball. As an early publicity stunt and marketing ploy, the company dropped Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars from airplanes in cities across the United States which helped increase its popularity. The Curtiss Candy Company was sold to Nabisco in 1981, and, in 1990, Nestlé bought Baby Ruth and Butterfinger from RJR Nabisco.

Butterfingers

1 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup white corn syrup
1/2 cup water
1 cup peanut butter
3 Hershey chocolate candy bars

Butter a 9-inch square pan.

Cook sugar, corn syrup and water over medium heat until 305 degrees F on a candy thermometer. Stir in peanut butter. Pour into prepared pan. While still hot, put 3 Hershey bars on top and spread evenly. Refrigerate. When set, break into pieces.

Homemade Butterfinger Candy Bars
from http://spinningsugar.wordpress.com/

"Butterfingers are a simple candy to make, but the Weather Gods must be in your favor providing a day with low humidity (under 60%). This recipe of mine makes a candy that is a dead-ringer for the original Nestle’s creation…but without their chemicals and additives that allow them to exist on the shelf for years…."

(Yields about 96 miniature candy bars)

1/3 cup light corn syrup
1/3 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup peanut butter
Spray Vegetable Oil (Pam, etc.) for keeping the knife lubricated in scoring

1 Pound of Tempered Semi-Sweet Chocolate for dipping

First begin by greasing a 12-by-17-inch jelly roll pan (with 1-inch sides) with safflower, vegetable or canola oil. Place the pan into a slightly warm oven to warm the pan while making the candy. (Don’t allow the pan to become hot, only barely warm to give you more time to spread and score the candy later.)

In a heavy 2-quart saucepan, combine the corn syrup and water, stirring well to combine. Place over medium-low heat and add the sugar. Cook the mixture, stirring constantly, until it is clear and then stirring often until it reaches a full boil. Clip on your calibrated candy thermometer, raise the heat to medium-high and continue to cook – without stirring – until the mixture reaches 310 degrees (F). During this cooking period, should sugar crystals form above the boiling line, carefully wipe away using a damp pastry brush, but be careful not to touch the boiling mixture. Rinse the pastry brush well – and make certain to blot-dry the brush well – between each swipe.

Remove your pan from the warming oven and place on your work surface.

Remove the candy from heat and add the peanut butter, stirring to blend completely using a clean wooden spoon. Working quickly, pour the mixture onto your well-greased jelly roll pan, and spread as evenly as possible. Score the mass with an oiled, heavy chef’s knife into 1-inch by 2-inch pieces, cutting at least half way through the candy. (The more quickly you do this, the easier and deeper your scoring will be.) It is helpful to spray the knife with cooking oil occasionally to aide the knife in scoring. [Try using a pizza cutter.]

Allow the scored mixture to cool at room temperature about 2 hours. When cool and hard, complete cutting the scored pieces using a sharp, heavy knife (I like to use my Chinese cleaver here) and break into individual pieces.

Place the cut candies into the refrigerator while you temper your dipping chocolate and allow to chill for 15 to 30 minutes. Remove the candies from the fridge and dip each piece into the chocolate, then place on parchment paper to allow the chocolate to harden completely (About 3 hours).

Note: You can add a certain flair to the candy by taking a clean dinner fork and touching the tops of each freshly dipped piece raising lines of “peaks” (akin to meringue peaks). Just use the back of the fork laid parallel to the chocolate cops, touch, lift and slightly pull to one side. Looks pretty snazzy….

Store on waxed-paper sheets in an airtight container for up to two weeks.

Questions and Answers

Bsweet: I have a recipe for peanut brittle that is just like the freshest butterfinger bar you ever tasted. Crumbly & flaky. Will humidity cause it to become hard and chewy? Why no soda in your recipe? I made several perfect batches and now can’t make one to save my soul. We’ve had rain and/or very overcast every time I make a bad batch. Is there a connection?

SpinningSugar: Thank you for your comment, bsweet! Let me try and answer your questions:

1. “Will humidity cause it [peanut brittle] to become hard and chewy?” Yep and in a heartbeat. That is why I only recommend candymaking at humidity levels below 60%. When making candy (one using a solution of sugar and water or cream/milk, etc. — they also contain water) the water is necessary to dissolve the sugar and is then cooked to a certain temperature to reduce the amount of water in the sugar solution. High humidity dramatically reduces your ability to remove the necessary amount of water to achieve the real cooking stage you are striving for. So candies cooked on humid days become sticky or chewy because the humidity level has added moisture back into the cooked sugar. Now, your candy made on humid days is not guaranteed to fail (sometimes we get lucky), but it certainly is destined to fail the majority of the time. Does that make sense?

2. “Why no soda in your recipe?” That is a very good question, bsweet, since soda is a must-add to nut brittles. This recipe does not produce a brittle. There are two primary reasons for not using soda in making these butterfinger candies. The first reason is this recipe requires peanut butter and its fats are what retard crystal formation in the syrup until the last moment during the cool-down. True brittles use whole nuts. Secondly is the final cooking temperature. The higher temperature in this recipe almost super-saturates the sugar solution and in using the fats in peanut butter to coat the crystals, the end result is a candy that breaks easily into shards. True brittles are cooked to a much LOWER temp and soda is used to react to the acids by foaming and spreading out the sugar crystals. True brittles are also pulled to stretch those crystals further. Without soda and stretching, brittles would be too thick, too dense and would be impossible to break without a hammer.

3. “Is there a connection” between your failed batches and rain/overcast skies? Absolutely. Try again on a day with humidity no higher than 60% (50% or lower would be ideal) and expect a huge difference. If you still have a failed batch on a dry day, I would suspect the culprit in your ingredients, utensils or method in decending order of complicity.

Victoria: Excellent website, thank you. Is the peanut butter in this recipe natural (peanuts and salt) or processed (Jif/Skippy, etc.)

SpinningSugar: Many thanks for your kind comment, Victoria. Store-bought peanut butter will work perfectly well in this recipe. But if you are an anal purist as I am and also happen to have an older-model all-stainless Vita-Mix, you’ll enjoy making your own completely natural homemade peanut butter, the flavor of which will kick this recipe up quite a few notches!

Fodi: I just tried making this recipe now, but it didn’t work and I was wondering if you could point me as to what I did wrong. After the syrup boiled to 310, a bit past the hard crack stage, I removed it from the heat. I tried stirring the peanut butter, but in less than 20 seconds, the mass had become too solid. Then I tried pouring it on the warm pan, and it actually didn’t pour, but rather drop in a single block. Thinking that I might still be able to salvage the whole thing, I tried spreading it on the pan, but it started breaking into little shards. Any idea?

SpinningSugar: Your syrup was too hot and the peanut butter seized while blending it in. I know the disaster well: I’ve done it myself hundreds of time! Be sure to calibrate your thermometer and certainly cook it at least 5 degrees less next time.