Balhyo Cha Candied Walnuts

Balhyo Cha Candied Walnuts are such a TEAlicious crispy dessert and they are a good pair with tea. In Korea, candied walnuts were served with tea for kings in the past, and they are still used as special gifts or treats at weddings, national holidays and special events and needless to say, for tea time.

Candied walnuts are conventionally made by deep-frying but here we are going to use an oven-baked method because they easily and quickly burn in oil and it is very tricky to find the best time to take them out of the oil. 

Instead of plain syrup, this recipe uses Balhyo Cha Syrup, and the pleasant flavours of caramel and chocolate from Balhyo Cha enrich the taste of this dessert.

Please click here to see our recipe for Balhyo Cha Syrup.

Ingredients:

· 1 cup Balhyo Cha Syrup

· 40 walnut halves

· water

Instructions:

1) Boil water in a saucepan at high heat on the stove.

2) When water boils, add walnuts and boil for 3-5 minutes to remove the bitterness from the walnuts.

3) Rinse off the walnuts with cold running water, and drain.

4) In a frying pan or a wok, add 1 cup of Balhyo Cha Syrup and boil at high heat.

5) When the Balhyo Cha Syrup boils, add walnuts. You will see big bubbles as shown in the photo below.

6) When the syrup bubbles get smaller as shown in the photo below, reduce the heat to low and keep tossing the walnuts until the they are evenly coated.

7) Prepare a cooling rack on top of a piece of parchment paper.

8) Move the walnuts individually to the cooling rack using chopsticks or a fork, spaced apart so that they don't stick to each other and you can let the excessive syrup fall down through the rack onto the paper. Let cool.

9) Place a new piece of parchment paper on a baking tray. Move the walnuts onto the tray, individually apart from each other.

10) Bake for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 160 ºC. (Optional: Instead of baking in the oven, you can just cool down and dry the walnuts at room temperature. However, oven-baked walnuts are crunchier and more flavourful.)

11) Remove from the oven, and cool down.

12) Store the walnuts in an airtight container such as a glass jar. You can enjoy the walnuts for up to 2 weeks at room temperature. If your room temperature is high in summer, you can store them in the refrigerator.

Enjoy the tasTEA Balhyo Cha Candied Walnuts!