Roasted Almonds with Truffle Oil & Rosemary

We're kind of freaky for truffle oil are our house.
The funniest thing is that we use it most on popcorn!  I've been intending to blog at that eventually.

However, the truffle oil was on the counter as I was prepping to head out to a friends with an appetizer for a party.  As I just needed something else to bring, I thought about roasting some nuts with the truffle oil!  These were a big hit at the party so I thought I would blog about it.

I buy in the oil section in most better grocery stores but you can order it off of Amazon which is probably easier than searching through the store.  It's about $12, and lasts a long time as a little goes a long, long way.  

Here's another recipe to use truffle oil in:
Polenta with Truffle Oil & Arugula.

I also use a couple drops in salads with a light vinaigrette.


Makes 2 cups
Ingredients

2 cups raw almonds
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp truffle oil
1 tsp fresh rosemary, minced
Truffle Salt, sea salt or smoked salt

Preheat the oven to 375.
Mix well the almonds with oils and spread out on a sheet pan.
Add the rosemary and sprinkle with salt.

Roast for about 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes.  
Let cool, stir to redistribute and sprinkle with more salt.
I found they needed more salt than I expected.

Sweet & Spicy Nuts

This have a addicting crunchy, sweet, spicy flavor. 
Something sweet and crunchy to begin with, followed by a kick of spicy to grab your attention.
I left a big bowl of these out on Thanksgiving day, while my attention was held with getting 14 dishes all ready for dinner at the same time.  It was funny to hear the exclaims of "wow" as people nibbled.
I might have warned them normally, but it was kind of fun to catch them unaware too...

I've made my sister in law's Yummy Nuts for years, and they are still my favorite, however, this one has some merits that can't be over looked.
I might try these again with only "sweet" spices, like cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice), nutmeg, ginger and cloves to see what it's like
There was only one "hater' of this recipe, my hubby who doesn't like cinnamon too much anyway, and disliked it mixed with cumin and chili powder.
It's up to you.

(not pictured, canola oil and cooking spray)

Makes 2 cups
Ingredients
 
Cooking Spray

1 egg white

2 cups raw skin-on almonds

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/3 cup sugar

3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

               

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
In a large bowl, beat egg white until frothy. Add almonds and oil; stir gently to coat. Combine the remaining ingredients; add to egg white mixture and gently stir to coat.

Spread into a 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 300° for 18-22 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring once. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Originally published as Sweet-Hot Spiced Nuts in Taste of Home December/January 2010, p31

Yummy Nuts

These are crunchy, delicious and addicting! Sweet and salty too.

My sister-in-law has been making these for years, and graciously shared the recipe with me (and now you!).  When I first tried them, I thought it was the most amazing thing I ever tasted!
Now I make these every Christmas time, to eat and share.
They make great hostess gifts or gifts for co-workers and perfect for a holiday gathering.  I once took a huge double batch of these into work and they were devoured in under two hours!  

I tell myself that these are better for you than candy, because the nuts have protein and good oils.... okay, I know that not exactly correct, but it works for me at this time of year. 

These nuts are, of course, great on their own for snacking, but also fantastic in salads (think of it with pears and blue cheese, tossed with some greems!) and also good in cookies for some more crunch.

One other thing, you could add spices to the mixture for a little more kick.  Try cinnamon, cloves, or ground ginger.  

Makes about 5 cups

1/2 cup butter, I use regular salted butter.
1 cup sugar
2 egg whites
5 cups of nuts (walnuts or pecans)
Dash of salt, if desired

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Cut the butter in half (1/4 cup each) and one to each cookie sheet.  Add it to the oven to melt while you are doing the rest of the prep for the yummy nuts.

Separate the eggs, retaining the yolks for another use (like scrambled eggs tomorrow).
With a mixer, beat the egg whites until they are starting to firm up.  Sprinkle in the sugar while the mixer is going. It will be a sticky, shiny mixture that almost looks like marshmallow cream.

Add the nuts

Mix to coat the nuts, don't stir too vigorously, just enough to coat the nuts.

Take your hot, buttery pans out of the oven.  They look something like this:

Add the nuts in one single layer.... that's why I have you use two pans.  You could do one pan, but it's a bit trickier to stir them later on.

Bake for 30 minutes, stirring them every 10 minutes! The nuts will brown as the time goes, and stirring helps to brown evenly. 

Try to let them cool a bit before trying them... 

Brown Sugar, Maple & Pecan Pound Cake

The funny thing about this recipe is that both my husband and teenage son, both notorious cake haters, said "this is the only kind of cake I like". It's not an overly sweet cake, and in fact, I felt it might need more sugar, but on 'day three' after making this, while I sit on the deck with my coffee enjoying the beautiful September morning, I think maybe, just maybe, it is perfect as it is. 

I've been trying to figure out what kind of Maple Cake recipe I should use for my neighbor's big 40th birthday party. Since she is Canadian, we really felt she needed a maple cake, and cuz' she likes maple too!

While I would make this again, I was concerned making a cake for 60 people out of it, so instead I used a more moist (lower fat) recipe for Maple Yogurt Pound Cake.  Since I've been up to my ears in maple cakes this week, I figured that I should blog about both of them.

Thanks to Martha Stewart for the inspiration, I know you won't mind that I changed some things!

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

5 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1/2 teaspoon coarse salt

1 cup pecans, lightly toasted and roughly chopped

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly butter and flour a 4 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown on medium-high until very light and fluffy, 7 minutes.

Scrape down bowl and beat 1 minute more. Add maple syrup, then gradually add eggs, beating well and scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, add salt, then gradually add flour, beating well to combine and scraping down bowl as needed. Fold pecans into batter.

Transfer batter to pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 65 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack, 1 hour. Remove cake from pan and let cool completely on rack before slicing.

Here's some other great breads that are quick and easy!
Easy Five Minute Artisan Bread
Kauai Banana Bread
Moist Lemon Bread
Zucchini Bread




 

Hazelnut Cake

Here's what I love about this cake, it has the best texture, it isn't too sweet and it would be easy to adapt to what you like. It's just the kind of thing you could eat after dinner, or with a cup of coffee in the afternoon with friends. This recipe is VERY loosely adapted from Ina Garten's Lemon Cake . I had been wanting to try her recipe for so long, but a friend gave me a little can of hazelnut oil.  It's great oil for salad dressings, but I figured I could substitute the hazelnut oil for vegetable oil in Ina's recipe, and add a couple other flavoring elements.  Ina's recipe is awesome, and I intend use the basic recipe to make many other cakes to find my mood, my tastebuds and my cupboard!

If you haven't already noticed, I love nuts.  Any kind, I love them all. But, it took some doing to get hazelnuts... I checked my grocery store who wanted $6 for 4 oz... hmmm, I don't think so!  Also, none at Costco and none available at Trader Joe's! It's weird to me, especially being from Washington state and knowing that our neighbor, Oregon, grows 100% of the US grown nuts... so why so hard to buy these things??? Finally I found some at Central Market in the bulk food section, and I am so glad that I did.  They actually had two kinds of hazelnuts $9.99 a lb from Turkey and $6.99 from Oregon- I asked myself, why would I want to pay more to get nuts that have had more travel than I have this year? I toasted them myself and gave them a good rub to remove the skins.  They are so good, I found myself munching these all the time.

Makes a 9" quiche/tart pan OR 1 loaf pan
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 Tbsp Frangelico, or vanilla
1/2 cup Hazelnut oil
3/4 cup hazelnuts, chopped

Glaze (not pictured):
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tbsp Frangelico

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Toast your nuts for about 10 minutes, giving them a shake every couple of minutes.  The second you can smell them, you should get them out of the oven, that usually happens right before they burn. If  you are worried that you may have scorched them, immediately remove them from the pan and place in a cool, dry dish to help stop the residual heat from cooking them more. When they are cool, you can rub them between your hands, or a towel, to remove the thin brown husk.  You don't have to get all of them, but try to get most.

Spray a quiche dish with cooking spray, or butter and flour.  You could also use a loaf pan.


Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, eggs, Frangelico and Hazelnut oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.  Add the chopped hazelnuts.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean. A loaf pan will take about 50 minutes.

I sprinkled mine with Turbino sugar, also called Demerra Sugar or Sugar in the Raw, but the glaze is nice too.

Bourbon Pecan Tarts

The Kentucky Derby is Saturday!

If you're going to a party, or having one, these tarts would be a great finger food treat.  I like the tarts because the hostess doesn't have to worry about cutting and serving this and then have a sticky mess left over. These will be neat and easy to eat and serve.  The only problem might be that people could eat more of these because they just go down so easy! I'm not saying I can eat a lot of these... but I've seen "others" tuck into them with wild abandon!!!

I baked these a couple of days before the party and froze them.  That way when we're ready to take off, all I have to worry about is my dress and my hat being in order to celebrate the Derby in style.  Wait... Derby is about horses, not food and fashion, right???

Makes 48 1" tarts, or two small pies

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup dark corn syrup (light would work too!)

3 large eggs, beaten

1 1/2 to 2 cups pecan halves

2 tablespoons good-quality bourbon

Pre-made pie crust, or use my easy recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar and melted butter. If you use a glass measuring cup to melt your butter in the microwave, use the same cup to do measure the corn syrup.... it will fall right out without sticking.

Add the corn syrup, eggs, pecans, and bourbon, and stir until all ingredients are combined. Pour mixture into an unbaked tart shells, and place on a heavy-duty cookie sheet.

Use the pie crust to cut 2" rounds for your tart pans.  I got 36 small tarts and a long narrow tart pan out of the recipe above (and the pie crust recipe too).  Add 1-2 pecans to each tart, and carefully pour in the pie mix over the top of the nuts, leave about 1/4 inch from the top. 

Note:  IF you overflow the pan, or get filling on the pan plus the pie crust those little suckers will never, I repeat, never come out with mangling them!!! Well, you can get them out, but you need to take a sharp knife and loosen the hold while it's still warm!

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tarts are set. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. The pie should be set on the top, but may be a tiny bit jiggly.  It will continue to set up as it cools.  Don't over bake, If the filling is starting to pull from the edges, that pie is DONE!!! 

If you are using tart pans which are about an 1" deep, it takes about 30-35 minutes. 

Traditional deeper dish pies take about 60-70 minutes, but can be almost 2" deep, which is a whole lotta pie, I prefer the shallow tarts, it doesn't feel like an over the top dessert that way!

Other Ideas:

• Use Walnuts instead of Pecans, my favorite.
• Substitute other alcohol and nuts in place of the bourbon, Rum, Frangelico and Hazelnuts, Amaretto and sliced Almonds.
• Just want a REGULAR Pecan Pie?  Replace the bourbon with 1 Tablespoon of good quality vanilla extract.
• Add the thin layer of chocolate to the bottom of your crust before you fill with the pecan pie mixture, a yummy surprise and tastes great!

Easy Microwave Peanut Brittle

Makes about 2 cups, broken into bits
Ingredients

1 c. sugar

½ c. light corn syrup

1 c. dry roasted peanuts

1/8 tsp. Salt

1 tsp. Butter, or margarine

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 tsp. Baking soda



In a 1½ qt. Microwave safe bowl, stir together the sugar and corn syrup. I like to use a 4 cup pyrex container with a handle... because this gets scary HOT and believe me, you're going to want a handle!



Get the peanuts, salt, vanilla and baking soda ready to go because you really need to be able to get your hands on the premeasured ingredients PRONTO!



Microwave the sugar and corn syrup for about 5 minutes, stirring twice.  It will just be starting to get some carmel color at the end of 5 minutes.  Add the peanuts, butter and the salt, mix it well and return to the microwave for another 1 1/2 minute.  Stir it, it might look like it's getting ready to burn.... you want it to get close, but NOT to burn! 

Add the vanilla to the soda and then add to the hot syrup & peanut mixture.  It will start to look foamy... this is good, but acting quickly, spread it out onto the lightly greased pan.  Try not to spread it around with any utensil.... just let it be.  Sometimes I lightly smack the entire pan on the counter to get it to spread out and become flat.  Whatever you do, DO NOT TOUCH IT - - -oh yeah, it is sticky hot and will burn the whole time you are trying to get yourself unstuck from this molten mass!!!

Let Brittle cool for 30 minutes and then break into pieces.  Makes about 2 pounds.

*** In case you're wondering, I only photographed those 4 pieces shown at the top of the blog because that's all that was left when I discovered I had taken all the pictures but the one I really wanted... the final product!



Round Two cooking… make more and use it for:

• Gifts, this is an easy way to bag up a batch of peanut brittle as a thank you, or to include as part of a Holiday sweet treat tray.

What else would this technique work on???

• Any type of nut... I use dry roasted peanuts mainly because I like them, but I have also made this with cashews, pecans or whole almonds. I've done it with roasted, salted and raw nuts... it always seems to turn out.
• Without NUTS.... have you ever had See's Candies "Seafoam" candy?  Basically, it's the brittle without the nuts in a thicker format and then dipped in dark, or milk chocolate.