Caramelized Walnuts and Recipe

To save time, these are the caramelized walnuts I buy at Whole Foods. I absolutely love them as a snack or on a salad. It's just walnuts, honey and sugar. They're great with goat cheese, pear slices and arugula for a salad. If you'd rather make them yourself, here's a good recipe from Elise...

Sweet, almost burned, a slight barbeque quality is the flavor that caramelized walnuts can bring to your cooking or snacks. Walnuts. Sugar. That's pretty much all you need to make candied walnuts. A dash of salt helps too. These are very easy to make. The trick is to work very fast once the sugar starts melting, because once it gets on the walnuts it cools quickly and the walnuts will stick together. You have 30 seconds or so to separate them before they are forever bonded by glassy, cooked sugar. The other trick is to not burn the walnuts when you toast them. (Yes, we've done that before...)

Candied Walnuts Recipe

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups raw walnut halves

1/8 teaspoon coarse salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Use middle rack in oven. Lay walnuts out on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake for 5 minutes. Test for doneness. If not quite toasted enough, toast for 1 or 2 more minutes. Be careful not to burn. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a rack.

2. Pour sugar into a medium saucepan with a thick bottom. Have walnuts nearby, ready to quickly add to the pan at the right time. Cook sugar on medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon as soon as the sugar begins to melt. Keep stirring until all the sugar has melted and the color is a medium amber. As soon as sugar is melted and the color is a medium amber, add the walnuts to the pan, quickly stirring and coating each piece with the sugar mixture.

3. As soon as the walnuts are coated with the sugar mixture, spread them out on a rimmed baking sheet, lined either with a Silpat non-stick mat, or parchment paper. Use two forks to separate the walnuts from each other, working very quickly. Sprinkle the nuts with the salt. Let cool completely. Makes 1 1/2 cups.

Courtesy of Elise at Simply Recipes

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/candied_walnuts/