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!

SpinningSugar: Wow. What an amazing idea, Bill. I haven’t a doubt in my mind how much your idea here would improve these bars in terms of texture with interior flakiness and immediate dissolving upon the first bite. Time- and technique-intensive, but what a payoff! Thank you!

SpinningSugar: Ah, for you Carol, it is ALWAYS a pleasure!

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

1. “Will humidity cause it [peanut butter] 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.