Years ago, I read an article which stated that all truly fabulous desserts contain three textures: creamy, meaty (meaning something you can sink your teeth into, not something resembling a carcass), and crunchy.
As someone who rates texture highly, I fully agree. An example might be a piece of cake – let’s pretend it’s a yummy vegan flourless orange cake (which is meaty) served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream (creamy), topped with toasted almond flakes (crunchy). The cake on its own would be delicious, but would it be quite as satisfying without both the ice cream and the almonds? To me, no.
And so I make a point of including all three textures when I’m making a special dessert (hmmm, aren’t all desserts special? I guess what I really mean is, when I’m making a dessert that’s not only for me).
Since I’m all about macadamia nuts at the moment, I present to you this Macadamia Crunch. It’s light, not overly sweet, delicately caramelly, and the perfect bit of crunch to scatter over your meat and cream! (Or as below, over your Macadamia Cream and berries).
There’s also scope to modify it by adding extra flavour – you could add a bit of ground cinnamon, ginger, or minced lemon zest.
If you try this, let me know what you think. I’d love to hear about any flavours you come up with.
Ingredients
1 cup raw macadamia nuts
1 tbsp coconut oil (melted)
1 tbsp agave nectar
1 tsp pure vanilla powder
Pinch salt
Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
Pulse the macadamia nuts in a food processor (or blender if that’s all you’ve got) until they’re getting crumbly. Don’t overdo it – you want texture and chunky bits, not uniformity. The bigger bits provide crunch; the crumbier bits soak up the flavour more.
Mix the crumbled macadamias and all other ingredients in a bowl. When evenly coated, tip the nut mixture onto your tray and spread it out with your fingers. Aim to get it fairly even.
Bake for 12-15 minutes (check after 10) until golden. Allow to cool on the tray – it will crisp up as it cools.
Once cool, store in an airtight container.