Easy Caramelized Macadamia Nuts

Having a convenient recipe for a nutritious snack that you can make at home in just a few minutes is one of the greatest kitchen tricks you can have up your sleeve. Our caramelized macadamia nuts check all the boxes, as they are filling, decadent, easy to make, and require only simple, natural ingredients. Say goodbye to the preservatives and additives used to give processed snacks shelf stability and welcome to your snack drawer these delicious nuts. Great on their own, the caramelized macadamias are even better with ice cream, yogurt parfaits, or when added to granolas. They also give a beautiful crunch to salads, baked cheeses, and iced cupcakes and cakes.

Macadamia nuts have their origin in Australia, where they constitute an important part of local indigenous populations' diets. Sweet and creamy, these nuts have a very hard shell, which means they have to be cracked by a machine, adding extra costs to their processing that make them very expensive compared to other nuts like almonds or pine nuts. You can find macadamia nuts in their raw form or roasted with or without salt. These nuts will keep well at room temperature for two to three weeks if stored in an airtight container. Commercially available in most supermarkets, they are also easy to find online. Although rich in calories and fat, macadamias are healthy nuts that offer fiber, vitamins, and minerals like manganese and thiamine. One-quarter of a cup of macadamia nuts brings to your table 2.5 grams each of fiber and protein, plus 100 percent of the recommended daily intake of manganese (2.3 grams per adult per day) with less than 1 gram of sugar.

Besides the nuts, you just need castor sugar, a common ingredient in British baking that is sometimes available in U.S supermarkets under the name of superfine sugar. This type of sugar has a texture in between regular granulated sugar and powdered sugar, with smaller crystals than regular sugar but not as fine as powdered. Castor sugar is also commonly used in making cocktails. If you can't find castor sugar at your local store, the easiest way to make it is to grind regular sugar in a food processor until it has a somewhat fine consistency. Measure the amount that you need after you've processed the granulated sugar.