Peanut Pie: Complete Recipe in 8 Steps
Bolos-e-doces
Glossário Culinário
Peanut
The peanut is a legume with a toasted flavor and crunchy texture, a relative of beans and soy, widely used in Brazilian cooking in sweets and savory dishes. It is the base of paçoca, pé de moleque and peanut pie, enriches farofas and snacks, and shows up in savory dishes of African and Asian influence. It can be eaten raw, roasted, boiled or ground as a paste.
Characteristics
Peanuts are sold with or without shell, with or without skin, raw or already roasted. Roasting enhances the flavor: in the oven or in the skillet, over medium heat and stirring always, it develops a toasted aroma and crunch. Ground, it becomes paçoca and flours; blended with a little oil, it turns into a creamy paste. Caution: peanuts are among the foods that most cause food allergies, demanding extra care with cross-contamination.
- Raw: to roast at home and control the doneness and salt.
- Roasted: ready for snacks, farofas and sweets.
- As paste: creamy or crunchy, for sweets and sauces.
Uses in the kitchen
In confectionery, peanuts shine in paçoca, pé de moleque and pies, besides topping cakes and ice creams. In savory cooking, they go into farofas, vatapá, xinxim and full-bodied sauces, and accompany beer as bar snacks. Peanut paste serves as filling, topping and ingredient in cookies and brownies. At festas juninas, peanuts are a mandatory presence, from salted roasted peanuts to cake with crunchy topping.
Substitutions
In sweets and farofas, roasted and ground cashews are the closest substitute in texture. Walnuts and almonds work in pies and toppings, with a more delicate flavor. In sauces and pastes, tahini, made from sesame, offers similar creaminess. None of them exactly reproduces the toasted flavor of peanuts, so the swap changes the recipe’s profile, but keeps the crunchy or creamy function.
Fun facts
Despite the name and appearance, peanuts are not tree nuts: they grow underground, in pods, like beans. Brazil eats peanuts all year, but the peak is at festas juninas, when they show up roasted, boiled and in typical sweets. To peel with ease, just roast lightly and rub the still-warm kernels between your hands or in a clean cloth, and the skin comes off almost by itself.
