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Friday, December 3, 2010

The One With a French Friday: Cocktail Nuts


I'll go ahead and make it known that every joke, pun, and bad innuendo that could possibly be made about "nuts" has already been made, either by D or by myself, so anything I say within this entry that could possibly have "That's what she said!" after it, consider it already there.

When I made the last update I made, I commented about how I needed to get back into the swing of French Fridays with Dorie. After I finished that entry, I was going about my merry way when I thought, "Um, Sarah? TODAY is Friday." So I went through the list of Things to be Made and pulled out the easiest one: Sweet and Spicy Cocktail Nuts.

Here are the ingredients:

Sugar, salt, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, egg white, and nuts. Dorie suggests using perhaps a mix of nuts, but seeing as to how I'm very particular about which ones I'll eat, I went with a combination of peanuts (because who doesn't love peanuts?) (besides those people who are allergic to them) and walnuts, which I had in the freezer, waiting for just such an occasion.

First, you mix together the dry ingredients.


Then you beat the egg white and mix it with the nuts.


Then you add the spice mix. . .



And mix all THAT together.



I should mention here that I was having a tough time with some of these pictures, because I wanted an over-the-bowl shot, but while I'm already tall, I'm not QUITE tall enough to pull that off. It was at this point D built me a little step stool out of two 12-packs of Diet Coke and a large wooden cutting board.


Awesome.

I have to admit here that I didn't follow Dorie's directions exactly. She was all talking about how you needed to take each nut piece out of the bowl individually, "let the excess egg white drip back into the bowl," and separate everything "as best you can."

I saw no excess egg white. Everything seemed to be pretty well mixed, and I didn't have the patience of take each individual one out of the bowl and place it on the pan.

So I just kind of dumped everything onto the cookie sheet and spread it out.

Into the oven they went.

When I pulled them out of the oven, I saw why Dorie had indicated that they needed to be separated. What I had was kind of like a peanut brittle textured creation.

But you know what?

I kind of preferred it that way.

It was DELICIOUS.

I feel like you could break it into chunks and sell it as some kind of holiday gift basket item.

So, so good.

Chalk up another FFwD win for Sarah!

8 comments:

  1. Welcome back! I think the peanut-brittlesque approach actually sounds like a good idea...

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  2. You're right, all these nuts look so yummy! And I love your ingenuity with the homemade step stool..we'll do anything for a good photo, won't we?

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  3. Today I made another batch but upped the nut quotient almost 75% and used two pans. Kept the single egg white and everthing got coated but I didn't have to laboriously remove the nuts one by one. I want a step stool now.
    Trevor Sis. Boom.

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  4. I made these with almonds, and they were delicious. I need to see what other nuts I have in the cupboard so I can make them again.

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  5. Ooh, yours look like mine. I doubled the recipe and put them all in one pan. They definitely could use more room, but they broke apart fine and tasted great! Love your step stool!!

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  6. Hee, hee, I like the way you were thinking! I would not have the patience for separating the nuts either. And I would be happy with the nut-brittle. Love, love, love!
    Cannot wait to try these:)

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  7. Love the brittle idea - I have to admit, though that I did separate mine and they worked out nicely, too.

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  8. I totally agree with you, Sarah... I wouldn't have the patience to separate each individual nut, either. That's just psycho!

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