Sweet and Spicy Chili Nuts, Secret Recipe Club....

And another Secret Recipe Club post goes into my records. These posts are really adding up which means the months are going past far too quickly, and I'm getting older by the second. This month really tested me, the blog I was assigned to visit and make a recipe from was Heidi's Verden, a Danish blog which translated means Heidi's World. The blog has a Google translate button to use  but it doesn't work with Internet Explorer so I had to do a lot of copying and pasting. Heidi's blog has many great looking recipes and I wish I didn't have the translate button issues but her pictures are what kept me scanning through each post to decide what I would like to make. I ended up choosing her sweet and spicy chili nuts. They looked like those snacks where you eat one and then another, and another and you just cant stop, you know the ones right? The recipe was easy to follow and if I was to change one thing it would be to make them spicier. This is no reflection of Heidi's cooking as everyone has different heat tolerance levels and mines just seems to be a little nuts if you pardon the pun. The addition of apple cider vinegar and lime juice was very interesting and even with her disclaimer about smelling the pan after adding these two ingredients I still went ahead and tried it. I should have trusted her as the fumes do tend to be very good at clearing any sinus congestion you might have!

Here's the recipe from Heidi's World:

25 g butter
3.25 cups mixed nuts (I used equal parts almonds, cashews and pecans)
0.5 cups light cane sugar
1 tsp mild smoked paprika
2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
0.25 cups apple cider vinegar
2 ½ tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon salt coarse

Melt the butter in a thick-bottomed wide pan - preferably nonstick.
Pour in the nuts and toast them in approx. 3-5 minutes to cashew nuts are beginning to take color. Add sugar and let caramelise, while stirring gently - it can take about 15-20 minutes so be patient. Once the sugar has melted, add paprika, chili and cumin - stir thoroughly around so the spices are distributed. 

 Add the vinegar and lime juice and stir the liquid is well distributed, and the vinegar has evaporated  Finally add the salt, stirring constantly. Turn oven to 350 degrees. Spread nuts out on baking paper in a roasting pan and dry them in the oven for approx. 5 minutes - watch out that they do not get too dark.
Take the pan off and let the nuts cool completely - when they are cold they should break apart and store them in a tightly closed container.