Candied nuts love coconut palm sugar

Crunchy sweet nuts are great for dressing up salads, cheese platters, and desserts at Christmas and for other special occasions. Plus, they’re easy!

Kids love to make them. Make lots and keep them on hand to use whenever you want some pizzazz.

Making the goodness of nuts even sweeter

As my regular readers know, I try to limit the dastardly sugar in my meals as much as possible. Sugar provides empty calories and causes tissue damage from inflammation over time, leading to many chronic diseases. To limit my use of sugar, I’ve been using stevia, a natural noncaloric  sweetener. But in some recipes, stevia just doesn’t cut it. Candied nuts would be one of them.

It could be that the product I was using, namely stevia sugar, was the problem. Stevia sugar is stevia mixed with another noncaloric component to give it bulk. Perhaps the filler just doesn’t dissolve quickly enough and fails to mix evenly through the egg white. Whatever, many of the nuts sweetened with stevia tasted bitter.

Something new – coconut palm sugar!

So instead, I tried a sweetener I just learned about recently… coconut palm sugar.

Coconut palm sugar comes from the sap of the coconut palm. Harvesters actually slice the bottoms of the palm flowers open and drain out the sweet liquid. Then they boil it down until it crystallizes. It’s the color of brown sugar, with the texture of course sea salt. And it has a pleasant caramel taste.

Iron, zinc, calcium and potassium, along with some short-chain fatty acids, polyphenols and antioxidants provide some health benefits.

It also contains inulin, a fiber that slows glucose absorption and may explain why coconut sugar has a lower glycemic index than regular table sugar (1).

Coconut palm sugar has several advantages health-wise over table sugar. But it contains the same number of calories. Use it sparingly.

I use coconut palm sugar when I want to make something sweet for a special occasion and stevia is not an option. But I use less coconut palm sugar than the amount of sugar called for in the recipe, as it tastes sweeter than regular sugar. Try it yourself and let me know how you like it.

Candied nuts, with coconut palm sugar
Makes about 3 cups

Whip until frothy:

• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon cold water

Add these to the egg white and mix well:

• 1/3 cup coconut palm sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt

Then add these nuts and mix to coat:

• ½ pound whole nuts (pecans or walnuts are nice)

Spread on a cookie sheet in a single layer.

Bake at 225F (a low heat) for 60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes (use the timer).

Cool and store in a well-sealed glass jar.

Try this recipe and find out why health nuts love coconut palm sugar!

Footnote

This post marks five years that Vinny’s been blogging on WordPress. I’m feeling a little nostalgic, maybe even weepy over how fast time flies by. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know you all. Take care and keep chatting, Love, Vinny xo