Nuts for Nuts

You can take that title any way you want! But there's a lot on the web lately about nuts. Maybe it's a holiday thing. Anyway, here's a video about how they harvest nuts. It reminds me of how they pick up golf balls at the driving range.

By popular demand, here's the recipe for my nuts. I can't remember where I found it. So I fail miserably at giving credit where credit is due. I apologize. I'm sure it was on one of the food blogs I read. If I find it, I'll amend the post.

Sugar and Spice Candied Nuts

1 cup dark brown sugar
1-2/3 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons Kosher salt
3 pinches of cayenne pepper (you could leave this out if you want.)
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 pound walnut halves
1 pound pecan halves
1 pound hazelnuts
2 egg whites, room temperature
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Mix together sugars, salt, cayenne and cinnamon; set aside. Beat egg whites until frothy but not stiff, add water and stir until combined. Add nuts and stir to coat evenly with the egg white foam. Sprinkle nuts with sugar mixture and stir until evenly coated. Spread sugared nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet fitted with a Silpat or parchment paper--you may need to put mixture on two cookie sheets.

Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally as needed. Remove from oven and separate nuts as they cool. Let cool for at least hour before storing in tightly closed container.

Makes 3 pounds

Note: This recipe was first created using only walnuts. But (the author) quickly found that you can mix or match the nuts to your liking. The mixture of walnuts, pecans and hazelnuts is the author's current favorite. If you only want to make 1 pound of nuts, divide the egg white and water by half and use a combined I cup of sugar--1/3 dark and 2/3 white, a pinch of cayenne, and only 1 teaspoon of salt and cinnamon.