Speaker A
Hello everyone. Today I bought a giant bag of peanuts in order to check how many Snickers bars can be made from it. Most importantly, we will find out what is more profitable: to make bars at home or just buy them in the supermarket.
A detailed experiment on making Snickers bars from 30 pounds of peanuts, comparing homemade vs store-bought cost and taste.
Key Takeaways
- Homemade Snickers bars cost about half the price of store-bought bars.
- The process requires significant time investment, approximately 11 days.
- Special equipment like a melangeur and mixers are needed for quality peanut butter and nougat.
- Uniform caramel layers are achieved by spreading on parchment rather than spooning into molds.
- Taste tests indicate homemade bars are well-received, making the effort worthwhile for some.
What the video covers
- The video explores how many Snickers bars can be made from a 30-pound bag of peanuts.
- The creator tests the profitability of making Snickers at home versus buying them from the supermarket.
- Peanuts are cleaned, shelled, roasted, and processed into peanut butter using specialized equipment.
- The caramel layer is prepared with corn syrup, sugar, cream, and peanut butter, then molded uniformly.
- Nougat is made from dry egg whites, sugar, and peanut butter, then layered over the caramel.
- The filling is cooled, sliced into bar-sized pieces, and coated with chocolate.
- Packaging is custom-made with printed wrappers and staplers, adding to the cost.
- The homemade Snickers bars cost half as much as store-bought ones but require 11 days of work.
- Taste testing shows positive reception, especially from children.
- The video concludes that homemade Snickers are profitable if time investment is acceptable.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Peanut Shelling
- 01:20Improving Peanut Shelling Method
- 03:26Roasting and Cleaning Peanuts
- 04:45Making Peanut Butter
- 06:27Preparing Caramel Layer
- 08:04Molding Caramel and Peanuts
- 09:34Preparing Nougat
- 11:26Assembling and Cooling Filling
- 13:09Slicing and Chocolate Coating
- 16:05Packaging and Final Cost Comparison
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
We have exactly 30 pounds of peanuts. I bought unprocessed peanuts in the shell since this is the most budget option. It cost only 80 dollars. Let's start with cleaning the peanuts. Now we need to crack the shell to get to the nuts themselves.
Speaker A
This can be done even with your fingers since the shell is very fragile. We begin mass cleaning of peanuts. After only 40 minutes, I felt pain in my fingers. It became clear that this is a bad tactic, so I decided to simplify the work with the help of chopsticks.
Speaker A
With their help, I will press on the shell until a crack appears and just open it with my fingers. This way, the load on the fingers is reduced. We continue cleaning. After another hour, I realized that this is too long a method.
Speaker A
So we change tactics and will use a small board with which we will crack dozens of shells at a time. So the work went much faster. Looking at the mountain of peanuts, I'm afraid to imagine how long it will take to completely clean it.
Speaker A
Three days later, we finished. Just look how much empty shell there was. We don't need it; it's just trash, so we collect it and take it out. The main result of our three days of work is the kernels themselves.
Speaker A
But in Snickers, they are not used in the same form as we do. The thing is that now the nuts are raw and in a thin red shell. We will solve these problems by roasting. We put the peanuts on baking sheets.
Speaker A
And distribute them. Ready. We send the first batch to roast in the oven for literally 15 minutes. Pour the roasted peanuts on the opposite side of the table. After roasting, it has that same nutty aroma. Absolutely every nut should pass through the oven.
Speaker A
Roasting is complete. After this stage, the red husk flies off the nuts as simply as possible. To speed up the cleaning process, pull the peanuts to the edge of the table, take a mesh bag in your hands, and
Speaker A
put a portion of peanuts in it. Fold the edge and begin to grind the peanuts between themselves. The husk separates and falls out. The cells in the mesh are already clean peanuts. Pour them into a container. Everything is ready.
Speaker A
But as a final filtration, we will pass the peanuts through a powerful stream of air to get rid of the remaining shells. Finally, after four days of work, I have in my hands the perfect peanuts for making Snickers.
Speaker A
Initially, there were 30 pounds. Let's weigh them and see how the weight of the peanuts has changed after processing. The net weight without a container is 17 pounds. But in addition to the peanuts themselves, Snickers also uses peanut butter.
Speaker A
To prepare it, we send 4 kg of peanuts to a large blade blender, cover with a lid, and grind for 5 minutes. The blender did everything it could, but it's still crumbs, not paste. So next we need a melangeur.
Speaker A
Turn it on. Using a spoon, gradually load the peanut crumbs into the device. It's ready. Heavy stone rollers grind the peanut crumbs against the stone bottom, and with each hour it becomes more and more pasty. For a good result, 12 hours are needed.
Speaker A
As a result, we get the perfect peanut butter. You can use a melangeur. Turn off, pour in the peanut butter, and fill the bowl completely. Finally, the peanut preparation is complete. But there are only 30% peanuts in a Snickers bar.
Speaker A
Another 20% caramel, 35% nougat, and 15% chocolate. So I bought a lot more ingredients. Taking into account the nuts, I've already spent $550. Let's start preparing Snickers bars with a peanut-caramel layer. For this, we need a whole bucket of corn syrup.
Speaker A
Open it and scoop out a little for the first portion. Next, we need sugar. Pour a drop of water into the saucepan, and you can put the saucepan on the stove. Be sure to use a thermometer to control the temperature.
Speaker A
While the caramel is cooking, our task is to measure out the required amount of heavy cream and peanut butter. This entire mass needs to be mixed, and when the caramel has reached the desired temperature, pour it in. Scoop out a portion of peanuts
Speaker A
and add them to the saucepan. All that remains is to mix it all, and you can remove it from the stove. Next, take a mold and fill it halfway with peanuts and caramel. By the end of filling the mold, the caramel cools down, sticks to the spoon, and this turns into just torture.
Speaker A
And most importantly, it is impossible to dose the amount of caramel. Because of this, the caramel layer turns out to be of different thicknesses. Therefore, we decided to take another mold, cover it with parchment, and send the hot caramel in.
Speaker A
We simply spread it with a spatula in one layer. It turns out to be uniform, and the thickness is exactly the same as in the original Snickers. This is an excellent result. In order to organize a conveyor belt for the production of Snickers, we need a lot of such molds.
Speaker A
At the first stage, I will measure out four portions of the ingredients at once, after which I will cook the caramel on all four burners. At this time, the second person measures out four portions of cream and peanut butter.
Speaker A
When the caramel is almost ready, I take the blanks and pour them into saucepans. I also add peanuts and, stirring, bring the caramel to a perfect result. At this time, two more people take the molds and cover them with parchment paper.
Speaker A
I remove the finished caramel from the stove and arrange it in the molds. Everything is calculated in advance so that one saucepan of caramel is enough for one mold. All that remains is to distribute it. It’s ready. All that remains is to repeat all this many times.
Speaker A
We managed to fill exactly 60 molds. This took another whole day. Let’s move on to preparing the nougat. For this, you need dry egg whites. Unlike regular eggs, here we don’t have to throw away unnecessary yolks, so we save on raw materials.
Speaker A
We send one teaspoon of powder into measuring cups and add the required proportion of water. All that remains is to mix, and in fact, we have restored the protein to its original form. Pour it into mixers and beat.
Speaker A
Add sugar and increase the speed of the mixers. You need to get a thick foam. Then cook four portions of caramel and pour it into the protein in thin streams, continuing to beat until the nougat thickens. But in the original Snickers, nougat is not white, but beige due to the addition of peanut butter.
Speaker A
We have exactly half a bowl left over. For each portion of nougat, you need to add literally one tablespoon, after which the nougat is ready. Put it on top of the caramel layer, cover with parchment, and using a rolling pin, evenly distribute the nougat over the entire surface of the mold.
Speaker A
Done. The two types of filling are glued together. But it turned out that ordinary mixers cannot withstand such a load and break very quickly, so we will use two large mixers. In one go, we get the same four portions of nougat.
Speaker A
We start the conveyor again. Two days later, we ran out of peanut butter, but this was enough to fill absolutely all the molds with nougat, which means the calculations are correct. Now each mold needs to be covered with cling film
Speaker A
so that the nougat does not absorb moisture from the air. The first mold is packed. There is still some left, 59. Before the slicing stage, the filling needs to be cooled, so we put it in the refrigerator. We filled the refrigerator to capacity.
Speaker A
You can close the door, leave it to cool for 12 hours. While the filling is cooling, we will prepare for the slicing stage and make a form with guides for the knife. Just cut the sides in the right places.
Speaker A
It’s ready. The filling has already cooled. You can proceed to slicing. Remove the film, take out the filling along with the parchment, and transfer it to our special form with guides. Now, with the help of a long spatula, you can very easily cut the filling into pieces the size of an original Snickers.
Speaker A
It’s ready. The filling is perfectly cut into 32 segments. We cut the remaining layers of filling according to this principle. Then we take the filling out of the molds, turn it over, and get rid of the par...
Speaker A
you get the perfect blanks for Snickers We move on to the final stage - coating with chocolate I bought granulated milk chocolate and it needs to be melted for this you need a bain-marie fill it with water essentially, this is a controlled water bath
Speaker A
install a gastronorm container and fill it with chocolate you can turn on the heat the chocolate begins to melt and to speed up the process, you need to periodically stir it with a spatula After an hour and a half, the chocolate has become liquid
Speaker A
this is what we need So, take the cooled blank for Snickers put it in chocolate and press it a little then shake off the excess chocolate and transfer it to harden on parchment On top of the original Snickers there are patterns
Speaker A
we will also do something similar after hardening, cut off all the unevenness chocolate and now perfect homemade Snickers we send to a tray by the way, we do not throw away the chocolate scraps, but return them back to the bain-marie
Speaker A
since all the ingredients are calculated and bought just in case, so that it is possible to calculate the cost of homemade Snickers to speed up the process, three people will cover the bars with chocolate at once after another 2 days of work all the Snickers, finally, are covered with chocolate
Speaker A
from the moment of shelling the peanuts until now a whole 10 days have passed all this did not look like homemade cooking but more like industrial production in total, from a 30 pounds bag we managed to prepare exactly 1840 Snickers
Speaker A
but, before we compare their price with store-bought bars, we need to make packaging since it is not free we printed exactly 1840 wrappers and bought 4 packages of paper clips for a stapler this cost us another 110 dollars
Speaker A
We take the first label and wrap the homemade Snickers in it We attach the label with a stapler and trim the edges with wavy scissors The result is packaging that can be confused with the original We'll simply place the packaged Snickers bars on the table
Speaker A
We still have 1,839 Snickers bars to seal Our five-person assembly line worked for another whole day So, 11 days later, the homemade Snickers bars are completely ready and packaged Just check out how many of them we got!
Speaker A
Our total cost for making the Snickers bars, including packaging, was $660 It's hard to believe that all of this was made in a home kitchen The most important question remains: is homemade Snickers bars cheaper than store-bought ones or was it all a waste?
Speaker A
Attention! Our Snickers is half the price of the store-bought ones and looks almost identical so yes, making Snickers at home is profitable if you have 11 extra days but besides the price, you also need to compare the taste
Speaker A
We are trying a homemade Snickers delicious peanut bar Let's immediately compare it with the original store-bought ones - they are a little more balanced due to the addition of salt but otherwise, the taste is identical and the consistency of the filling is the same
Speaker A
that same stretchy caramel We found out everything we wanted but you are probably interested in the further fate of all these bars since there are 460,000 calories here and we ourselves will definitely not eat it Therefore, we are collecting all the Snickers in three huge containers
Speaker A
We decided to give the first container to the children from the dance section they were incredibly happy about it Everyone who tried our Snickers praised their taste We left the second container with Snickers right in the entrance so that each neighbor could take a bar
Speaker A
The children were especially happy about this! Well, we left the final, third container with Snickers for all the children we know so that no one would be left without something sweet Bye everyone
Topics:Snickershomemade candypeanut processingcaramel recipenougat makingpeanut buttercost comparisonDIY candy barsfood experimenthomemade chocolate
