Fire-and-Ice Nut Mix

For the first installment in the Great 2014 Holiday Baking Extravaganza, I chose Fire-and-Ice Nut Mix from Recipe.com. This obviously isn't my recipe, but it's a good one. The combination of sweet and hot and salty and crunchy made me want to sit down and eat the whole bowl myself as soon as it was done, but I was good and sealed it in a container to save for my family parties.

I'm taking this to two parties, so I doubled the batch. The ingredients are pretty simple, but they are fairly expensive. Cashews, pecans, real maple syrup, honey, soy sauce (I used Maggi Seasoning instead), cayenne pepper, and butter.

First step is to grind some of the cashews and mix them with the cayenne pepper (the directions say to do this in a small bowl, but I just added the cayenne to my chopper). In a separate bowl, you mix the soy sauce and honey.

Add the remaining whole cashews to the bowl and stir until well-coated. I found folding rather than stirring to be more effective, but you can do it however works best for you.

Then stir in the ground cashews-cayenne pepper mixture until all the whole cashews are well-coated. All of the mixture won't stick, but that's OK. The clumps of ground cashews that form are also very tasty after they're baked (and before, really).

Whatever you do, DO NOT skip lining your pan with foil! The mixture is so sticky even before baking you'll pretty much never get it off the pan if you don't. Spread the cashews evenly in the pan and stick them in the oven.

The directions say to bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring 2-3 times. It's too long, or at least it was in my oven. I set the timer for 10 minutes the first time and some of the cashews were already starting to verge on burning. Even with stirring every 6-7 minutes thereafter, they ended up a little burned. I only ended up baking them for about 22 minutes. Luckily, even though partially burned, they don't taste bad and I was able to use them all.

In order to facilitate cooling, I picked up one end of the foil and slid a 9x13-inch cooling rack underneath, then transferred the whole thing to the table, leaving the pan behind for the pecans.

Again, DO NOT neglect to line the pan with foil. This batch is even stickier than the last, and you'll truly regret it if you don't. The pecan halves are tossed with a mixture of melted butter and real maple syrup (I don't know how it would work with pancake syrup, because I didn't try), then spread in the pan to bake.

The directions say to bake for 20 minutes, stirring twice. After how the cashews went, I set my timer for 7 minutes, then stirred. I ended up stirring three times, and baking for almost 25 minutes. Again, I slid a 9x13-inch cooling rack under the foil and moved it to the table to cool.

I'm not entirely sure how long you're supposed to let them cool before breaking them apart and then mixing them together, but I fell asleep so it ended up being about four hours. Seemed to work.

Don't be concerned about the buildup on your spoon that seems like it's going to require a sandblaster to remove! I soaked mine in a cup of water while I was napping, and it completely melted away.

Fire-and-Ice Nut Mix

Serves 16

8 ounces lightly salted cashews (1-1/2 cups)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons butter, melted
8 ounces pecan halves (2 cups)

Serving Size: 1/4 cup

Calories: 188

Fat: 16 g

Saturated Fat: 2 g

Cholesterol: 1 mg

Carbohydrates: 9 g

Fiber: 2 g

Sugars: 4 g

Sodium: 82 mg

Again, I'll point out that this is not my recipe, it comes from Recipe.com.