Peanut Butter Brittle

What is it?

There isn't any brittle in it. What the name points at is caramelized peanuts, which is a related idea and a different thing: brittle is nuts set into a sheet of cooked sugar and snapped, while these are coated individually. The coating matters more than the distinction suggests. Cooked sugar left bare draws moisture out of the ice cream around it and turns sticky, then soft, so peanuts that stay crunchy through a tub have to be sealed rather than scattered. Peanut butter appears twice, in the base and in the caramel ribbons, and the nuts are the only thing in the tub that isn't smooth. That's the whole balance: something has to interrupt a base this continuous.