Ok, another "process" not really a recipe.

I wanted to have some "candied" pecans for the holidays so here's what I did. I mixed up a bowl with polydextrose (you can order from Honeyville grains or Netrition), splenda and cinnamon (one batch I also used cloves, and that was good too!).

I "washed" the raw pecans in a strainer to get off that bitter pecan dust. Then I put them in a bowl and dumped the polydextrose mixture on top and stirred them well. I put them on a baking sheet and baked them at (oops, trying to remember) 250-300 for about 30 minutes. Then I turned the heat down to as low as it would go and let them dry out for another hour or so.

When they came out they were crunchy like candied pecans and my guests exclaimed over them at my party!

I absolutely love candied ginger, I'll have to try that next time!

Cool! So you washed them and tossed them with polyd/other stuff. No major clumping?

That's a good idea. I've been working on boiling down a sweetened polyd syrup to a hard crack stage and then mixing the pecans into it, but the hard crack polyd is SO thick, it's hard to get a good coating. It's a lot easier if I settle for a hard ball stage, but those get really sticky.

I've also tried coating them with a hard ball syrup and then tossing them in powdered malitol. That worked alright, but it brought maltitol into the equation.

Maybe a combo of a hard ball stage syrup and some baking time might do the trick.

The other thing I like to do is caramelize/color the polyd a bit first, then add some water back and proceed from there. I've also added cream and butter to my polyd and coated the pecans with that. That's pretty tasty.

Nancy, how about some coconut cream? That might be nice to give it a bit of toffeeishness.

The ginger might get tricky. If you cook it for long enough in a polyd syrup it should develop a translucent candied quality, but getting the crystallized sugar exterior could be tough. I forget, where are you on maltitol and isomalt? Those are off limits for you, right?

It clumped a little but those turned into clumps of "candy" after the baking.

I'm not using SA's that give me a tummy ache. I could, but all that gas... scares the cat.

I did it again with walnuts last night. Ate too dang many!

Mine aren't like toffee nuts, they're more like slightly candied nuts. Little chunks of crunchy candy here and there. Mostly it helps the splenda and cinnamon stick to the nuts.

Nancy, how much polyD are you talking about per how much nuts.

Hey Nancy!!! I'm with Kevin....
How much PolyD to nuts.

I'm thinking a salty sweet chipolte nut may be in my future

Lisa

I dunno, I didn't measure.

I just mixed it up and tasted it (to make sure it was sweet enough in a pinch of the mixture) then dumped the pecans in. The more PDX you use, the more "candy" ends up on the pecans. I suppose there's probably a limit to reasonablness though. They had fat coats of stuff on them when I put them into bake.

I guess if I were to eyeball the amounts it was about 2 cups of nuts and 3/4-1c of polydextrose.

Nancy, did you ever try the candied ginger?

No, I haven't tried it. I've been dying for some though.

I tried a candied nut recipe today that came out great, I didn't have polywhatever on hand so this one was made with ingredients I was actually able to get my hands on. The egg white makes it really easy for everything to stick to the nuts though.

http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/re...Nuts87846.shtml