Oh, I have such bad luck with candying! Any tips other than work fast?

do you need to add water to the sugar while cooking it? the ingredients don't have water in it but how else will the sugar melt?

What a wonderful idea! I have loads of fresh walnuts that someone gave me and now I know what will happen to at least some of them!

This will work better on a day that isn't overly humid - there's my only real tip. I love candied nuts of any sort - have to make some of these up very soon.

I havent had a chance to try this yet, but I have made similar recipes and candy recipes ... I would suggest to try and pour the sugar into the bowl of walnuts, while you have someone stirring, this may work out easier for some cooks and would make it easier to get the nuts more evenly coated without them all sticking together

Betsy

Has anyone tried this with brown suger instead, or adding cinnamon? Just curious... seems like it would be tasty.

Thanks!

Oh wow, those look so good. And holiday parties are the perfect places for these nuts. I've tried them once before and was really not pleased with my recipe. I will have to give these a go. Thanks!

I do believe it would be a bad idea to stir the sugar. Stirring melted suger can cause it to reform crystals, since the broken molecules of sucrose are looking to bond with each other. Stirring it does help, but you should add about 1 tbs of corn syrup to the sugar. This will fill the empty bonds when the sugar melts, so the sugar won't fill in those bonds and make crystals.

Looks yummy! Will this work with other nuts, like pecans or almonds? Thanks!

Hi everyone, thanks for all the tips!

Hi Kelly - this recipe should work with other nuts as well.

Hi Elise,
I tried this recipe with mixed nuts, and it works perfectly! Hope you don't mind that I link your recipe to my blog (sorry it's in Chinese, but you are very welcomed to take a look) and thank you for sharing such a great idea!

Hello,
This recipe worked perfectly, and despite scientific advice cautioning against stirring, I did stir and all went wonderfully, Thank you .

Er... we tried to use it last night, but on the first attempt the sugar left recrystalizing into bigger and browner crystals when it melted, and the second time we had to add like half a cup of corn syrup to get it to remain in a semi-liquid state. Any advice on that?

I just tried this today, this morning actually, and it turned out great! I melted the sugar, didnt need water, corn syrup or whatever, worked perfectly and was delicious. I plan to try it on mixed nuts next

This recipe is by far the simplest, and I came across no complaints...thank you!!!

This was a very easy recipe; I used wax paper, the only thing I wonder about is would it help to spray PAM on the wax paper, I lost a few walnuts to the wax paper sticking to it. I microwaved it one time after it cooled and that didn't seem to help much. with the holidays coming soon, I would like to perfect this one! other than the slight sticking problem, it was great!

This was my first try with candied nuts, and they came out, ok. I think next time I will use one of the recipies with more "substance". I also used chopped walnuts, instead of halves, which I think gave it a nice cluster appearance, and made the fact that stuck together a bit not as noticible.

Anyone ever had the Waldorf Chicken Salad from California Pizza Kitchen? The candied walnuts are the best I have ever had. I tried 1C. walnuts, 2T.butter, 1T.sugar and 1/8t. cinnamon. They tasted O.K. but the sugar melted off the nuts and landed on the wax paper. Any suggestions? Maybe corn syrup?

Thanks,
Lisa

My favorite method for making these is with some maple syrup (the real stuff!) and a couple grinds of black pepper - the pepper really brings out the sweetness.

However you make them, they've awesome in Chicken salad, with granny smith apples, celery, and onion.

I love the candied walnuts at California Pizza Kitchen and that has prompted me to make them for my salads at home. I hope this works out! Recipe ingredients are so touchy.

Aiden,
Did you use maple syrup in addition to the sugar? Or did you use only maple syrup and how much? I think this sounds delicious.

Oh wow, this was my first "experiment" with candying and it went very well :)
And the nuts tastes very delicious!

Hi there -

I just made these for the first time ever using your recipe and they came out great. Thanks! I'm going to retry at some point with some cayenne.

-- jen

Hi there,

I was just wondering if anyone knew how to store these and how long they are good for? I was hoping to make this in advance for Thanksgiving.

I made these because they were the simplest recipe I found, but I added some nutmeg & cinnimon to the sugar before I melted it. I also used raw turbinado for the sugar and they turned out great. A little bit of salt was definately good advice. Also, Good tip about pulling the walnuts apart with 2 forks. Thanks for the recipe!

This is an awesome recipe, I have made it several times trying to use everyones tips and after several attempts the best thing to do is to make it exactly as said above but to add cinnamon, about 1/8 tsp, and spray the wax paper with pam. Make sure to stir the sugar as soon as it starts to melt! Comes out great everytime. (Hint: the salt makes these walnuts perfect)!!

I just made these nuts and it took about 10 minutes total...I toasted the nuts for 7 minutes, while I danced in the livingroom. When the buzzer went off I started the sugar. Advice: don't stir it too much or it will never melt, but do watch it as it all happens pretty fast. Whatever you do: don't touch it once it's melted!!! It's burning hot (I blistered my finger ~ ouch!) I put the nuts in to the sauce, yes, pure sugar, no corn syrup. It took about 30 seconds to coat the nuts and I dumped them on a piece of wax paper and separated them with a fork just like it says...EASY and YUM!