I love pear-walnut-gorgonzola-spinach salad with crispy, crunchy
candied walnuts. I've been testing recipes for about a year, trying
all sorts of variations, including methods that called for boiling the
nuts first, methods that involved cooking in the oven, etc. I finally
just put toasted walnuts in a frying pan with sugar and eureka, that
was it.

So this is the method I use:
Toast walnuts in oven at 400 deg or so for 10 min or more. Watch 'em
carefully, they burn easily at the end.
Cool. Rub off skins. I suspect that is optional but I'm compulsive
like that
Place walnuts and granulated sugar in a frying pan on medium flame.
Heat and stir as sugar melts. Add more sugar as necessary to coat
walnuts but you don't really want much accumulating syrup. The pan
should be fairly dry. It will get verrrry hot; use a metal spatula
with a cool handle. Don't use a non-stick pan- it's not necessary
anyway.
Continue until sugar carmelizes. Be careful when it starts to smoke,
although the dark spots are tasty. (I keep the lid at hand in case of
a fire.)
When the sugar's all melted and sufficiently carmelized remove from
heat and sprinkle with salt and a few more tbsp of sugar (for
texture).
Spread individually on non-stick mat to cool.

Note: after the pan and utensils cool, they clean up easily by soaking
with water.

Today's experiment was to see what effect honey would have since
commercial "honey-roasted" nuts are very good. So I followed the same
procedure but added a couple tbsp of honey. I had to cook a bit more
to evaporate the water added by the honey and it was syrupy. In the
end, the nuts did come out crispy enough after being completely
cooled. However, they stick to each other and to teeth too much.

So it looks like the method above wins.

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

Oh pshaw, on Tue 04 Jul 2006 12:12:17p, Curly Sue meant to say...

> I love pear-walnut-gorgonzola-spinach salad with crispy, crunchy
> candied walnuts. I've been testing recipes for about a year, trying
> all sorts of variations, including methods that called for boiling the
> nuts first, methods that involved cooking in the oven, etc. I finally
> just put toasted walnuts in a frying pan with sugar and eureka, that
> was it.
>
> So this is the method I use:
> Toast walnuts in oven at 400 deg or so for 10 min or more. Watch 'em
> carefully, they burn easily at the end.
> Cool. Rub off skins. I suspect that is optional but I'm compulsive
> like that
> Place walnuts and granulated sugar in a frying pan on medium flame.
> Heat and stir as sugar melts. Add more sugar as necessary to coat
> walnuts but you don't really want much accumulating syrup. The pan
> should be fairly dry. It will get verrrry hot; use a metal spatula
> with a cool handle. Don't use a non-stick pan- it's not necessary
> anyway.
> Continue until sugar carmelizes. Be careful when it starts to smoke,
> although the dark spots are tasty. (I keep the lid at hand in case of
> a fire.)
> When the sugar's all melted and sufficiently carmelized remove from
> heat and sprinkle with salt and a few more tbsp of sugar (for
> texture).
> Spread individually on non-stick mat to cool.
>
> Note: after the pan and utensils cool, they clean up easily by soaking
> with water.
>
> Today's experiment was to see what effect honey would have since
> commercial "honey-roasted" nuts are very good. So I followed the same
> procedure but added a couple tbsp of honey. I had to cook a bit more
> to evaporate the water added by the honey and it was syrupy. In the
> end, the nuts did come out crispy enough after being completely
> cooled. However, they stick to each other and to teeth too much.
>
> So it looks like the method above wins.

Thanks, Sue. I've wondered how to do that. I guess sometimes "simple" is
really best.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬
_____________________