I'm smoking several lbs of almonds for different holiday gatherings and decided my usual honey maple almonds needed a kick in the pants. I consulted with Scarbelly and he set me on the path to nutty greatness. I followed his recipe from this wiki http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/a/smoked-nuts-by-scarbelly and the only changes were using 48 oz of almonds instead of 40 oz mixed nuts, adding an extra 1/4 cup honey and I doubled the chipotle powder.
Fpnmf gets thanks for his praline bacon thread http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/106794/todays-treat-praline-bacon-with-q-view which I made to munch on while the almonds were smoking. Mine didn't look as good as his but it was to die for. I can't find any cane syrup here in California so I made a substitute of 2 parts corn syrup to 1 part molasses. I found this substitution in an article online.
On to the almonds
3 lbs from Costco for just under $10.
Scarbelly's recipe calls for bacon fat which I don't save, mainly because the only time I have store bacon on hand is for ABT's or the lb I bought for the praline bacon. My BBB is pretty lean so it usually doesn't leave much behind. I asked Scar if I could substitute butter for the bacon fat and he said I could but he added that the bacon fat would take it to a whole new level.
I decided to find the fattiest pieces of BBB from my last batch and fry them til I could scrape up 2 tbsp of bacon fat.
Added the fat to the wok and then followed with the almonds, mixing around til coated. Then the brown sugar and the tapatio joined in.
Then the rest of the ingredients.
Then into the smoke for 3 hours and 20 minutes. They smoked at 225 with cherry and hickory.
Since I was going to be up late waiting on the smoke, I decided to treat myself to fpnmf's praline bacon.
These are a thing of beauty.
The almonds were bagged up and shipped to the in-laws in Chicago this morning but not before a little sampling by me.
I loved eating the almonds hot. They lure you in with sweet and then light a fire in your mouth with some awesome heat. I swear I could've spit fire last night when they were still warm. I didn't notice the heat as much this morning when they were cooled but they were still out of this world. I think I'll double all the hot ingredients on my next batch just to see how they are once cooled.
Thanks for looking and thanks again to Scar and fpnmf.
Fpnmf gets thanks for his praline bacon thread http://www.smokingmeatforums.com/t/106794/todays-treat-praline-bacon-with-q-view which I made to munch on while the almonds were smoking. Mine didn't look as good as his but it was to die for. I can't find any cane syrup here in California so I made a substitute of 2 parts corn syrup to 1 part molasses. I found this substitution in an article online.
On to the almonds
3 lbs from Costco for just under $10.
Scarbelly's recipe calls for bacon fat which I don't save, mainly because the only time I have store bacon on hand is for ABT's or the lb I bought for the praline bacon. My BBB is pretty lean so it usually doesn't leave much behind. I asked Scar if I could substitute butter for the bacon fat and he said I could but he added that the bacon fat would take it to a whole new level.
I decided to find the fattiest pieces of BBB from my last batch and fry them til I could scrape up 2 tbsp of bacon fat.
Added the fat to the wok and then followed with the almonds, mixing around til coated. Then the brown sugar and the tapatio joined in.
Then the rest of the ingredients.
Then into the smoke for 3 hours and 20 minutes. They smoked at 225 with cherry and hickory.
Since I was going to be up late waiting on the smoke, I decided to treat myself to fpnmf's praline bacon.
These are a thing of beauty.
The almonds were bagged up and shipped to the in-laws in Chicago this morning but not before a little sampling by me.
I loved eating the almonds hot. They lure you in with sweet and then light a fire in your mouth with some awesome heat. I swear I could've spit fire last night when they were still warm. I didn't notice the heat as much this morning when they were cooled but they were still out of this world. I think I'll double all the hot ingredients on my next batch just to see how they are once cooled.
Thanks for looking and thanks again to Scar and fpnmf.