Recipe: Candied nuts - glazed

You may be surprised at how many different ways there are to candy nuts - right off the top of my head, I can think of five (without even getting into additional flavours).  More interesting is the fact that in every case, the ingredients are basically the same - nuts, sugar and water.  The water tends to be a vehicle for the sugar since by the end of the process you want to evaporate it all out.  This method is probably the healthiest way to candy nuts because the amount of sugar is completely your choice.  The heavier the syrup, the thicker and sweeter the coating will be, but you can also use a light syrup for a thinner coating and more natural flavour.  Incidentally, if you strain the syrup well after coating the nuts you get a very nice nut syrup for pancakes.

You will need:

nuts - in the picture are walnuts, but any kind will do

sugar

water

salt

Method:

 - bring a pot of salted water to a simmer

 - drop the nuts in and let them poach for about 5 minutes (this helps remove any extra husk)

 - in a sauce pan, start a heavy sugar syrup (at least 2 parts sugar to one water)

 - strain the nuts out of the water and transfer to the syrup

 - let the nuts cook at a low simmer for 5 or 10 minutes to absorb the syrup

 - if the nuts look well coated, strain them out and spread out on a paper lined tray

 - set the oven to 200F / 93C (even lower if you like)

 - place the nuts in the oven and toast completely dry

 - periodically move them around so they don't stick to each other

 - after about an hour, you can take the odd one out, let it cool, and test the crunch

 - once you have the crunch right, you can turn the oven up if you want to colour the nuts more

 - cool completely

 - store in an airtight container