Spicy Nuts XDby *Immy-is-Thinking

Artisan Crafts / Culinary Arts / Other

***Xmas Spicy Nuts***

Don't they look beeyootiful? These are the most delicious spicy nuts in the world. Really. Mr -is-Thinking makes them every year and it is quite a momentous thing in the yuletide calendar at mine. We give them out to our friends and family as presents. People have been known to actually fight over the last jar...

*Warning: we have 4 ovens. You need a lot of space for this. If you haven’t got a kitchen that’s like one giant stove, please divide the ingredients down accordingly*

Ingredients (makes ~30 jars of nuts to give as xmas gifts)
(All the nuts should be whole, raw and have skins on for hazels and almonds)
- 2kg almonds
- 2kg cashews
- 0.5 kg macadamia nuts
- 0.5 kg pecans
- 0.5kg hazelnuts/brazils/other nuts you like
- 3 tbsp ground cinnamon
- Handful of cloves
- 125g salted butter
- 250g soft brown sugar
- 250 ml hot sauce
- Salt and pepper

NB: for the hot sauce you want something vinegar based and not a sweet chilli sauce.
And it wants to be HOT --->

Try Spicy Monkey, Nando’s, Holy Cow or Facing Heaven. Or make your own if you have a lot of chillies and don’t mind the eye-searing fumes (which I seem to get whenever making hot sauce!

)

Instructions
- Dry the nuts for half an hour in a low oven by spreading them on greaseproof paper on baking trays
- Meanwhile, in a very large pan, melt the butter and add the sugar, hot sauce, cinnamon and cloves. When its bubbling nicely and looks like sticky brown goop...
- Turn of the heat and add the dried nuts to the pan
- Stir the nuts in the goop until they are all coated with it.
- Spread the nuts out on greaseproof paper on baking trays again and cook at 120 deg C for about an hour-hour and a half. Your kitchen should smell awesome and you should be drooling.
- Take the trays out, sprinkle the nuts with the salt and pepper, and leave the nuts to cool... DO NOT be tempted to try the nuts now! They will be hotter than the surface of the sun and still sticky!
- When the nuts have cooled use a wooden spoon to break up the clumps of nuts. Store in an airtight container or add to sterile jars to give to other people.

There are always some people who don't like chilli (my sister is allergic

) so I always make another smaller batch (half size) by melting the same amount of butter with a tbsp or 2 salt, 2 tbsp ground pepper, and 50 ml sherry, then following the same procedure. This makes nice salt & pepper flavour nuts