Crunchy Caramel Walnut 焦糖核桃

Walnuts have many well known health benefits like promoting brain health, providing antioxidant, lowering LDL (the bad cholesterol), and many many more 💓Therefore, it is a good idea to eat a small quantity of walnuts daily. To make walnut into an easy accessible and available snack, I found a simple and quick recipe that convert raw walnuts into crunchy caramel coated walnuts without the use of butter - just light brown sugar, water and the natural oil released by the walnuts 😋

Ingredients

Prepare in small batches so you'll enjoy the snack at its freshest

25g walnuts
5~6g light brown sugar
pinch of salt
20g water

Directions

1. Rinse and drain walnuts.

2. Add all the ingredients into a small non-stick pan or pot.

3. Cover and heat over medium-low temperature till the liquid starts to boil. Remove the cover and stir the ingredients to ensure all the walnuts are well coated with the syrup.

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4. When the syrup starts to dry up, lower the temperature and stir till all the walnuts are well coated by the thickened syrup.

5. Preheat the oven toaster to 130~150℃ and line a baking tray or plate with a parchment paper atop of 2 sheets of tissue paper or paper kitchen towel. The thicker lining will prevent the syrup coated walnuts from burning at the base.

Transfer the hot walnuts to the lined baking tray or plate. Arrange the walnuts in a single layer and leaving some gaps in between.

Heat the walnuts for about 15 to 20 minutes, or till you can smell the nice nut aroma.  The purpose of the heating is to dry up and caramelize the coating of the walnuts, so it is best to bake in low heat and over a longer duration. High heat will char the syrup coating easily.

6. When the syrup coating turns into a light brown colour, remove the walnuts from the oven toaster immediately. Let the walnut cool down.

After the caramel walnuts have cooled down, the stickiness will reduce. But if you leave them in the open with high humidity for too long, the coating will become sticky again.

Keep the caramel walnut in an air-tight container and store in a cool dry place :)

Enjoy the goodness of walnut in good taste 😋

Recipe adapted from 香酥烤核桃 谢谢分享食谱