Welcome to Toast ~
Let's cooking sonething great together.
Toast is a once-a-week bit of love where I’ll share one easy tip that can dramatically improve your life in the kitchen and make you a much better cook and baker. Additionally, because we all like food, each tip will be accompanied by a fun and delicious recipe so you can try out your newly acquired skill. Each edition of Toast will arrive on Thursday, so you’ll have some time to plan if you’d like to make something amazing over the weekend.
Let me know your thoughts. I’m excited to cook with you!
Cheers -
Chelly Klann @ TheGoodFoodProject.co
If I could give you one hint that could forever change how your baked goods taste, it would be to toast the nuts!
Almonds, pecans, walnuts, macadamias, and even not-actual nuts like coconut flakes, sesame seeds, and peanuts (a legume, not a nut) are so much more when they’ve been toasted. Truly a better version of themselves - crunchier, more flavorful, even “nuttier”.
Certainly, you can mix untoasted nuts into any recipe you are making and it will be “fine”, but spending an extra 10 minutes to gently toast the nuts to golden brown deliciousness adds a surprising depth of flavor and complexity that untoasted nuts are just simply lacking.
Raw almonds are “edible” (not much of a compliment). They are a bit soft, a bit chewy, and really almost flavorless. But when they’ve been toasted, almonds reveal an unexpected crunch, a deep buttery flavor, and a sweet soulful aroma.
This amazing transformation carries over into your baked goods as well. Add raw walnuts to your brownies and bitterness is what they bring to the table. But toasted walnuts? Now buttery, nutty, and crunchy - they are a truly worthwhile addition to your brownies.
How to Toast Nuts ~
Toasting your nuts is easy and takes close to no time at all. Spread them out on a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and put them in the oven at 350F/175C degrees. Be sure to set the timer for about 8 minutes. When it rings, move them around see how brown they are, and make sure they are evenly toasted. They may need 3 or 4 minutes more. SET THE TIMER AGAIN! Burnt nuts are nobody's friend. They smell terrible and taste worse. And way too often, I put nuts in the oven and forget about them, only remembering when the acrid aroma of charred nuts hits my nose.
Toast them until they are golden brown and the soft aroma of nuts has filled your kitchen. If you are using them right away, let them cool for a few minutes then add them to the recipe. If you are storing them, let them cool entirely. Hot nuts get squishy if they are put into a closed container.
You could also toast nuts in a dry skillet on the stove over medium-low heat, This works great, as long as you are going to stand there and shake the skillet like you are flipping pancakes. Don’t walk away to do something else, because nuts on the stove burn even faster than in the oven.
I also like to toast coconut - I love how it becomes several shades of color - It never toasts evenly so you will have some flakes that are still white, some that are light brown, and some that are dark brown. When you toss them all together they make a really interesting color combination.
Seeds are another great candidate for toasting - there are obvious choices like pumpkin, sunflower, and sesame seeds, but even flax and chia really benefit from a few minutes in the oven or on the stove. Larger seeds, like pumpkin, will take longer (up to 20 minutes) and smaller ones will go much faster (5-7 minutes), so keep an eye on them.
Let’s bake ~
Here is a great recipe to try out your new nut-toasting skills. This is a recipe for mandelbrot - kind of a soft biscotti. I love the texture. This “biscotti” is crispy and chewy but doesn’t leave crumbs all over your shirt.
They are fabulous with morning coffee, afternoon tea or anytime you remember that there is a plate of delicious “almost” biscotti waiting in the kitchen.
Biscotti is always baked twice - once as a kind of loaf, then they are sliced, turned on their sides, sprinkled with sugar, and put back into the oven to bake for a little bit longer. It’s what gives Biscotti its trademark crunchy texture.
Let me know what you think. And if you baked these fantastic “biscotti”, I’d love to hear how they came out. Post a comment and let me know how it went. Cheers - Chelly
