I celebrated a birthday fairly recently. My thoughtful children showered me with extravagant and expensive gifts, including something that never fails to excite – a container of French Burnt Peanuts from a source I had never sampled. Why does this matter? We may not know if a tree falling in an uninhabited forest makes a sound, but we DO know that a new variety of French Burnt Peanuts will cause a big splash in these environs. Please allow me to explain.

It was right about this time eleven years ago that your favorite blog (OK, maybe it’s only my favorite blog) hit the big time with a lament about favorite products that are no longer available. The star of that blog post was Brach’s French Burnt Peanuts. For several years, that post saw the most traffic of anything I wrote. In the good old days of Google (when they turned up actual things people had written instead of Amazon and other big e-tailers trying to sell you stuff) my blog post was on the first page of any Google search for French Burnt Peanuts. Which made me either someone of colossal importance or the master of arcane nothingness. I like to think it was the former.

For the uninitiated, French Burnt Peanuts are those little red, pebbly, candy-coated peanuts that are, not to overstate, the best confection in the entire history of the world. Much time was spent (and many life-giving calories consumed) in the search for a suitable substitute for my old favorite, and the not entirely satisfactory results were reported in this space. It was only the heavens parting over my local big-box hardware emporium in 2020 that led me to a version of this old-fashioned candy that was as sweet as the dearly departed Brach’s version that I had been missing. A fact which I reported here.

So, for those who are catching up, this little dusty corner of the grand World Wide Web is the place to go for everything you want to know about French Burnt Peanuts. OK, almost everything, because it appears that nobody has any idea how they came about or who invented them. But this matters little for the one who simply demands a taste of the stuff. And because 6 years is far, far to long to have let this topic go without an update, it would seem that we are ripe for a FBP throwdown.

The Idaho Candy Company has been sweetening peoples’ lives in Boise, Idaho since 1901. Their big local product is the Idaho Spud bar – something that may get covered here in the future because I was gifted one of those too. In addition to the Spud and three other varieties of candy bars, the company offers numerous types of bulk candy. On its website, it describes the FBPs as being made in small batches and in vintage copper candy pans. At $7.99 for a 17 ounce tub, they are a mite pricey. However, it is widely held that one cannot overpay for quality FBPs.

The Old Mill brand available at Menards stores are priced online at $4.49 for a one pound bag (though thrifty shoppers with more spare time than I have can get a 49 cent rebate). Old Mill is apparently a Menard’s store brand. The candy itself is packaged by LMH Quality Products of Mankato, Minnesota. Their branded candy is under the Q P Candy label, but it is unclear whether LMH/QP makes these or repackages product that comes from elsewhere. If so, elsewhere makes some darned fine FBPs.

There is little difference in ingredients. Sugar, peanuts and corn syrup are the primary ingredients in both, although the first two swap places between the brands. This is probably because the candy coating is thicker on the Old Mill brand and thinner on the Idaho product, making peanuts the primary ingredient. Idaho finishes with vanilla, salt, maltodextrin and FD&C Red No. 40.

Old Mill finishes its list with tapioca dextrin, confectioners glaze, unidentified “flavors” (both natural and artificial) and the same FD&C Red No. 40. Nutritionally, the big difference would seem to be 10 mg of sodium in Old Mill vs. 70 mg in Idaho per serving.

The other big difference is serving size. Idaho lists an astounding 43 pieces in a serving! That is the kind of thing that could make me a customer for life. Old Mill is a less generous 3 tablespoons. Because we take our reporting obligations seriously, 3 tablespoons measured out to 23 pieces in your author’s kitchen. In fairness, the Old Mill pieces are larger. Instead of counting out 43 pieces of the Idaho, I tried to approximate the measure in an identical dish. Which I may or may not have done accurately. Do these numbers add up to 15 servings in a pound of Old Mill vs. 11 servings in Idaho’s 17 ounce tub? I’ll have to think on that one some more.

OK, so how do they compare in the only things that really matters – taste and crunch? Because the reining champ around here is the Old Mill, let’s try that one first. They taste like – French Burnt Peanuts. There is some peanut flavor, and a sweet crunchy shell with a pleasant flavor that is difficult to place. I opened a fresh bag for this test, and held off on opening it for perhaps a week. Proving that there are few inconveniences I will not suffer for you, the reader. I have noticed that some bags are crunchier than others, and this one is sort of mid-pack. All in all, it is (less than) five bucks well spent.

Let us move on to the Idaho product. These have an ideal crunch. The peanut taste is stronger (again, probably because the coating is thinner). There is also a significant salt flavor, which lingers for a big finish. There are those who would be disappointed in this, but your author is not one of them. I have been fortunate to have been assigned a body that tolerates salt quite well, and I find few things that cannot be improved with (at least) a little bit of the stuff. In sum, the sweet and salty combination works well. Also, the candy has just a touch of a toffee flavor, which is very nice. This package has been open for awhile, and I have been steadily working my way through it.

So, how do they stack up? My conclusion is that the Idaho product is probably the objectively superior candy. It is crunchy and flavorful, with a peanuts and salty toffee vibe. I have gone through many handfuls by now and find it a pleasing sweet treat. BUT – if a guy has a taste for traditional Brach’s French Burnt Peanuts, the Old Mill is still the one to beat, if only because its familiar flavor comes so close to the one I grew up with. It is more sweet and less salty, and the larger individual pieces are easier to eat by the 2 or 3 than the multiple smaller morsels that Idaho serves up.

About Brach’s. It sold out to Farley’s & Sathers in 2008, and is now seems to be under the Ferrara umbrella of companies. They still make some of their old favorites – including Candy Corn and Jelly Beans. Should someone from Ferrara stumble across this missive from a one-man FBP appreciation society, you might send someone down to rummage through the basement. That intrepid soul might find a dusty old recipe for a candy that is missed. It could happen, right?