Nuts Archives - 10 Cents of Dates

December 20, 2020December 20, 2020

Candied Nuts for Anytime

I’ve tried glazed nuts and spiced nuts in different combinations, but this recipe for candied nuts are the ones I long for when I run out.

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Candied nuts are a staple at German Christmas markets. The warm cinnamon scent permeates places like Cabela’s and the Belvedere Oasis. The best dine out salads contain either a candied element like nuts or a pickled element. Until that strawberry spinach salad at my friend’s house with sweet onion dressing, I hadn’t really considered making candied nuts at home. “It’s so easy” Beth promised me.

Imagine having an endless supply of candied nuts at home.

When I get an idea, I run with it to the extent of my abilities. What if…?

So I started experimenting.

I used Beth’s basic recipe and started experimenting. I tried it with slivered almonds, whole almonds, pecans, walnuts, the occasional peanut. I’d get a bag of mixed nuts…

I knew it was a slippery slope I was on. I found out that I don’t really like candied nuts on a savory salad. They really aren’t good to eat right before bed because they are a little challenging on the digestive system.

Before long I was dabbling in brittle and spending chunks of my grocery budget on nuts to feed my habit.

My husband humored me until I eventually got my fill. He’s pretty awesome like that.

And then I discovered my great-grandma’s recipes.

My great-grandmother clipped the candied nut recipe from a bag of Crystal Sugar. I moved it to the “not quite yet” pile of recipes because of the required use of a candy thermometer.

I have a mostly hate relationship with candy thermometers after breaking multiple by accidentally sticking them in water while they were still hot. I’ve also lost the clips that are supposed to keep them on the side of the pan. I’ve never wanted to spend the money to get the more expensive variety that may meet my expectations because I don’t use a thermometer that often. (Unless I just don’t use it that often because I didn’t like the thermometers I’ve had.)

I waited too long.

In the before time I brought these nuts to work as part of a themed potluck we were doing. It might’ve been breakfast buffet or cheese and crackers day. Whatever the reason, the nuts were gone before I left for the day and I handed out the recipe multiple times.

A Warning:

You will burn yourself while making this recipe. Just expect it. It may not be from sugar splatters. More likely a hot nut will find its way into your mouth and as you gasp from the searing pain, your hands will be reaching for another nut. It’s fine. Mouths heal quickly.

The Recipe:

Candied Nuts

This candied nut recipe was likely clipped from a bag of Crystal Sugar. It is easy to make and stands the test of time

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Total Time 1

Course Dessert, Side Dish

Equipment

Candy thermometer

Ingredients

1 ½ Cups Crystal Sugar any granulated sugar will do
½ Cup Sour Cream
2 TB Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
½ tsp Cinnamon
2 ½ Cups Pecans or any other nut

Instructions

Combine sugar, sour cream, and butter in a 2 quart sauce pan.
Boil until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage on a candy thermometer (238° F) stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat.
Add vanilla and cinnamon and stir until mixture begins to thicken.
Add nuts and stir to combine.
Turn out onto a buttered cookie sheet and separate nuts into individual nuts or clusters.

Notes

This basic candied nut recipe can be modified by using different nuts and different seasonings. I sometimes add a little nutmeg or cardamom to deepen the flavor. I’ve added rosemary and cayenne to spice it up. These nuts work well on yogurt parfaits, salads, and snacking by the handful. Homemade candied nuts add something special to charcuterie boards.

Keyword Candied nuts, Easy recipe, Nuts, Snack

If you like this recipe, you may want to try Christmas Sugar Cookies and Peanut Brittle, Visions of Sugar Plums and Rosettes, and Ribbon Candy Bars.

December 28, 2017February 23, 2018

Cherry Dessert

I have this view of Iowans as practical people. People without a lot of nonsense. Straightforward, honest, and hardworking. It’s a stereotype to be sure. But then again, some of those stereotypes are reinforced by literature. So maybe I’m not totally off-base.

In college, I would take weekend visits to my grandparents’ house. I usually brought along homework of some sort. One weekend I brought along a book I was reading for one of my classes. It was called Making Hay. Grandpa picked up the book, studied it for a minute and turned to my grandma. “Dorothy, look at this. Verlyn Klinkenborg.” “Who?” I asked. “Oh, he used to play with your uncle when they were kids.” I almost asked if they were sure it was the same guy, but then I realized that the chances of two people having that name were slim.

For Christmas this year, my husband got me the book Prairie Fires since I have been a fan of the Little House books since I was young. In it, the author discusses both Laura Ingalls Wilder and Hamlin Garland‘s connection to Burr Oak, Iowa. My grandparents introduced me to Hamlin Garland’s books when I was young. We went on a tour of his house. I can barely remember the trip, but my copy of Rose of Dutcher’s Coolly has moved with me for nearly 30 years. The practical people that named some of these recipes were not nearly as eloquent as the writers which is why we have recipes named things like “Darned Good Candy” and “Cherry Dessert.”

So what is Cherry Dessert? It’s a nut and cherry filled cake topped with a jammy cherry sauce and whipped cream. It is delicious and addicting.

The first time I made it, I mixed everything up together (with cherries from my trees) and put it into a prepared 9×13 pan. Before I even got it all into the pan, I realized that I probably should’ve used a smaller pan. The cake layer was about equal to the whipped cream layer. The bad part about this was that it took a large piece (or two) to leave me feeling satisfied and the cherry dessert would call my name as it sat in my fridge. The second time I made it, I had much better results in a smaller 8×8 pan. I neglected to let the cake cool completely before adding the whipped cream to the top. The results were a bit runny and messy, but nonetheless incredible.

The sweetness of the cake, the tartness of the cherries, and the creamy layer all combine to make a dessert that satiates every dessert craving except chocolate. It’s cool and a bit crunchy. This is going to be a staple at my house during cherry season.

Cherry Dessert

1 c sugar
1 egg
1 TB butter, melted
1 c flour
1 t soda
1/4 t salt
1 c sour cherries (reserve juice)
3/4 c nuts

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes

Cool. Cover with whipped cream.

Heat juice, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 TB flour, 1 TB cornstarch. Cook until thick. Add 1 T butter. Chill, spread over cream.

November 9, 2017

Tweedle Beetle Banana Bread Battle

When I shop at a certain grocery store, they almost always have bananas in their reduced produce bin. I can get an enormous bag of bananas for 99 cents. There is never anything wrong with them except that their skins have some brown spots. The bananas inside are perfectly lovely and ripe. However, we can only eat so many bananas in a day or two. The rest of them find a nice home in my freezer until I’m ready to take them out and do something amazing with them. Unfortunately, I’m not always very creative and that something is almost always banana bread. I have a delicious recipe that I normally use from Todd English’s Olives Dessert Table Cookbook. This blog is not about Todd English or the incredible recipes he has published, though…

In my collection of hand-me-down recipes, I was blessed with a number of banana bread recipes. My normal process for recipes is to scan them all in and rename them all then do a quick comparison to see if the recipes are exactly alike. You would think that with the thousand or so recipes I have that there would be more repeated recipes than there actually are. I had a long debate with myself about how to handle repeated titles and variations on recipes. There are some cases where it makes sense to do a taste test and figure out which recipe is actually better. But in the case of things like ham loaves or egg foo yung recipes, I’m not sure I’m up to making more than one version at a time. If we have to do things like compare which gingersnap recipe is better, as long as I have enough molasses and time, I’ll gladly make 20 versions and try them all. In this case, I made the banana breads a few weeks apart. I made small loaves and froze some of them for eating later on.

Ok…Banana Bread #1.

Banana Bread

1/2 cup margarine
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1/2 cup sour milk
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup nuts
3 mashed bananas

45-50 minutes at 350

Banana Bread #2

Banana Bread 2

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
3 small or 2 large bananas
1 tsp baking soda
2 TB sour milk
2 cups flour
1/2 cup nuts

1 hour at 325.

These are others of those recipes where you have to know how to make it in order to follow the recipe. Basic method for quick breads, cream the sugars and fat together, add eggs and bananas, mix the dry ingredients on the side and alternate adding them and the milk. Add the nuts at the end.

So which was better?

#1 is textured more like a sandwich bread. It’s a bit dryer and very much unlike other banana breads I’ve had. It has a definite crust. There was nothing wrong with it, but butter or cream cheese made it much better.

#2 is similar to most of the banana breads I’ve eaten before. The texture is moist and cake-like. There is no discernible crust except on the very edges. It reminded me of watching Julia Child at my grandma’s house when she was making some muffin or something and said “It’s so good, it hardly needs butter” as she slathered an enormous amount of butter on whatever it was she was eating. My kids definitely preferred this one.

In the battle of these two banana breads, #2 is #1.

November 7, 2017

Frozen Salad

Growing up, we had these great neighbors with whom we always had fantastic potlucks. Our neighborhood was really a fantastic place. The 4th of July picnic involved an all-neighborhood water fight and blocking off the street. A writer I knew even wrote about it. I’m not sure if it’s in his published works or not, but I intend to read his books to find out.

As much fun as July 4th was, it was Thanksgivings that stick in my mind. There were green salads with chickpeas in them. It seemed exotic to me at the time. (Note to self: start doing that more again). My mom would make sweet potato rolls. There was enough variations of the traditional foods that it seemed like passing the food almost took longer than eating it. The crown jewel of the meal, the thing that seemed the most impressive in that whole meal was the frozen fruit salad. It was always done in a ring mold and had canned fruit cocktail and bananas and whipped cream and marshmallows. At the time, I had no idea that this version of frozen salad existed. For some reason I associate butter mints and salted peanuts with old ladies (or ladies that seemed very old when I was very young). The addition of canned pineapple and marshmallows combined into a creamy frozen Jell-O salad solidifies that feeling. It’s both disgusting and wonderful all at the same time. One of those guilty pleasures. The nuts add a bit of crunch and texture. The mints kind of bring everything together and make it really refreshing in an unexpected way.

When I made the salad, I realized partway through my freezing that I had forgotten to add the mints. I ran downstairs to the freezer expecting that the salad would be frozen solid and there would and I was going to have to figure out a workaround, but it turned out that when we moved the freezer, someone had plugged it back into the wrong outlet and the power strip had tripped. This meant my salad could easily be saved. (It hadn’t been very long, so everything else in the freezer was saved also. Not like that other time when I suddenly had to cook 3 pounds of ground beef, some ribs and some chicken.)

When you look at the recipe, there is something written next to the word “Jell-O”. It looks like “clay”, but is probably “cherry”, but I didn’t know, so we used lemon Jell-O.

Sorry for the lack of pictures on this post.

A word of caution, this is a dessert salad. You can serve it along with your regular meal, but it is very sweet.

Frozen Salad

1 large pack small marshmallows
1 pack Jell-O (the small box)
1 large can crushed pineapple

mix and refrigerate overnight.
Crush 1 pack butter mints. Mix with 1 cup cream whipped. Add nuts. Mix with Jell-O and freeze.

November 5, 2017

Found on the Back: Grocery List

It’s Sunday. I didn’t menu plan or grocery shop yesterday. If I don’t do it today, I’m going to be behind all week. Although it looks like this list may be for some sort of party (or maybe to make frozen fruit salad) I just need basics.

I thought I had posted the recipe for frozen fruit salad, but I guess I didn’t. Guess that’ll be Tuesday’s post. If you are headed out to the store and want to do a cook along with me on Tuesday get the whipping cream, butter mints, and some nuts. If your pantry is stocked like a grandma’s, you should have everything else you need already.

October 5, 2017October 6, 2018

Groovy Teen Bars

Are you concerned that your teen or preteen is just not groovy enough? Do they seem a bit down in the dumps? Maybe your son wears his polo shirt buttoned all the way up to the top button. Perhaps he has no idea how to roll up his sleeves or loosen his tie. Maybe your daughter can’t see past her very proper twin set and pearls. Perhaps it’s time to turn off the Pat Boone and put on some Janis Joplin and serve your teen a plate of these groovy treats (while wearing a tie-dyed apron, of course).

This was one of those recipes that I knew I had to make. When we were kids my mom served us something called a “Teen burger.” This is a fabulous creation that is like a hamburger and a sundae all at once. Literally a scoop of ice cream on top of a burger with all the fixings. Our introduction to this recipe used chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream, but mom said the proper way to do it was really vanilla with chocolate syrup. My sister has continued the tradition in some of the exotic places she has lived and for some reason, I have never made that for my very groovy kids.

However they did get to eat an entire pan full of these bars. I can’t remember who was coming to visit when we made them. If it was you, please comment and let me know.

Ok, so what do you need to know about these bars? (I just re-read the recipe and realized that they are only for boys. Maybe no one wants groovy girls?) They are pretty good. The fudge, egg white, nuts,and coconut topping was a little weird to make. The crust was super easy.

I found another recipe in the archives that must be for the girls. It’s called “teen bars”.

So if you want your boys to be groovy or just make some bars especially for teens, put on the lava lamp, burn some incense, and get super hip to this recipe. Let your hair hang down and…who am I kidding? I’m not even slightly groovy, even after eating these bars.

The Recipe:

If you like this recipe, check out Gumdrop Bars, Corn Flake Bars, and Easy Bars.

Tag: Nuts