Tuesday, November 14

Nuts...

My new camera is driving me nuts.
It’s so pretty and I really love it but I’m beginning to get a little desperate.
It doesn’t matter what I do - all my pictures are either too light or too dark and too blurry or too dim. I really hope it’s just a temporary problem and I just haven’t figured out the light focus or something like that…

So under the impression that at least one of my 158 photo’s was good, and without further checking, I started tasting and…
all the cashew-caramel cookies disappeared quickly.
And this was the best picture in the bunch.
I’m sorry I can’t let you better see how incredibly delicious these cookies were…

Because they weren’t just good.
They were really, really good.
I know it’s a bit strange, but you make me most of the time happier with a good spoon of cookie dough then the cookie itself…
Well, these nut cookies are like the best cookie dough ever.
They are chewy, not too sweet, and the cashews are lovely caramelized in the oven. They have a good bite, a delicious sugary bottom and an amazing soft caramel swirl on top…oftewel; echte door-etertjes! (so it’s really hard to stop eating these…!)

I found the recipe online at MarthaStewart.com but I made some big changes in the process so I typed out what I’ve done here below.
If you want to check out the original recipe; click here

I don’t have a decent electric mixer to grind cashews with, only a puree mixer with a sharp blade which will make the nuts fly and spring everywhere (I have btw a rather horrific Christmas story about this blade - but that maybe for later…) so I just chopped 1 cup finely and kept the rest in big chunks. This worked out really well as I may say so.
For some reason I wanted to add pear as well. Don’t ask me why, I just had a feeling. It turned out to be a wrong feeling; there was absolutely no trace of pear in these cookies. Not that's incredibly terrible, I think they are pretty perfect just like this…
I kept the pear in the recipe what so ever - who knows how they would turn out without it??


Cashew Cookies (makes 24)
- 200g (1 ¾ cups) all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp salt
- 350g (3 cups) roasted, salted cashews
- 4 Tbsp sunflower oil
- 115g (1 stick, ½ cup) butter, softened
- 115g (¾ cup) packed light-brown sugar
- 100g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 pear
- 24 cubes soft caramel candy (200g, 7 ounces)
- 65ml (1/4 cup) heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. (350°F)
Mix flour and salt together in a small bowl and set aside. Finely chop 1 cup cashews and transfer them to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add butter and sugars and mix on medium speed until fluffy. (about 2 minutes)
Mix in egg, vanilla and oil. Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture. Wash and dry the pear and thinly slice it with a cheese-slicer. Chop these slices into even smaller bits and mix it in with the reserved, roughly chopped cashews.

2. Shape dough into 4cm (1 1/2-inch) balls; space 5cm (2 inches) apart on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake 6 minutes and gently flatten with a spatula. Bake until bottoms are just golden, 6 to 7 minutes more. Let cool completely.

3. For the caramel, melt caramels with cream in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring. Let cool. Using a spoon, drizzle caramel over cookies and let set. Store the cookies in an airtight box in single layers.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, i don't have a decent food processor either, so that makes us two miserable women?
my hubby loves cashew so much, and i think it's time for cashew cookies to be made in my home :)

Unknown said...

Julia, these must be really delicious, you finished the whole lot of them? :p

Anonymous said...

The camera thing drives me crazy too. We are both striving to be like Peabody~ her photos are always finger lickable.
Lookin good!

Anh said...

I'd like to have some of these cookies! :P Love the nuts in them! :)

D said...

Heya Julia,

Thanks for dropping by my site. Your site is excellent. I'm always impressed by people who have not only the patience and concentration to bake but also the ability to capture nice pictures of their products as well.

Anonymous said...

Your pear picture is excellent and I like the cookie picture too. They don't seem too dark to me, the only thing dark about them is the background. Amd the cake shot from the previous post is beautifully lit.

Also: these cookies sound DELICIOUS!

Anonymous said...

That is my biggest worry if I get a new camera. That I wont be comfortable with it and I will go back to my old camera. :(
Those are yummy looking though. I love caramel and cashew anything.

wheresmymind said...

I'd recommend an off camera flash...the flashes that come with DSLR's stink

Brilynn said...

I need to make these cookies... Need.

*fanny* said...

Hi Julia,
i love this picture actually. It has a great depth of fiel and is not toobright/dark - but well, that's only my humble opinion.

Anyway, those cookies look SO good.

- fanny

Lauren said...

You make them sound incredible. I love cashews - i don't see how these could be anything but perfect.

interesting about the pear... hm.

Julia said...

Hi Eliza, it’s luckily almost Christmas, right? ;) hope you and your husband enjoy the cookies!

Hi Angie, they were indeed pretty addictive…uhm, well I had a little help! ;)

Thanks Sandi, those are always very nice indeed!

Thank you Natalia, haha you bet ya! I love that book so much, literally everything looks amazing in there…

Hi white poplar! They are certainly nutty! Glad you like them…

Thank you D!

Hi Julie, thank you so much for your sweet comment!
You’re right about the background, that made it darker - but in real it wasn’t so dark…! But I luckily figured it out now…(I think!) =)

Thank you Peabody,
I can imagine that - and why would you? You make absolutely stunning pictures! =)

Hi Wheresmymind, thanks for the tip - I think you’re right!

Hi Brilynn, haha LOL - have fun! ;)

Hi Fanny, thank you for your comment! Yes, maybe I exaggerated it a bit…I love your ‘Riz au Lait au Chocolat’ by the way…

Thanks Lauren, yes it’s almost a sickness; I almost always try and put something in that doesn’t ’belong’ there…;)

Valentina said...

Hi Julia, I was away for a while but I am back and came straight here to see the wonderful things that you have been posting. I love this post - shame that the pears did not add the touch you expected.However, great of you for trying.

Corianne said...

I am soo impressed by your bakingskills!!!

Great photos too. Yeah, i am struggling with you with the photo thingy...