I couldn’t settle on a recipe this morning and almost gave up….
…until I found my King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book.
I’d put it away months ago and had forgotten about the many things I’d bookmarked and planned on trying. One in particular, was Salted Cashew-Crunch Cookies. I had exactly 8 ounces of salted cashews in the pantry, so I got to work.
The cookies were delicious and I couldn’t wait to share the recipe. But first, I checked with Google to see if it had been posted. Indeed it had, and by none other than Joe - -back in May 2007.
My cookies looked like Joes. We followed the recipe pretty much the same way, except I did what KA sometimes does and mixed the baking powder and salt in with the butter/sugar/egg mixture rather than the dry ingredients. The cookies were delicious -- crunchy and packed with cashew flavor. I have to admit, I was worried the cookies would be too salty with the extra salt on top, but they were perfect.
Salted Cashew-Crunch Cookies
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon table salt or Morton Kosher
2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats, ground for 30 seconds in a food processor
2 cups salted coarsely chopped cashews
More Salt (Diamond crystals or fleur de sel or more Morton Kosher)
Preheat oven to 350
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg, vanilla, baking powder and salt, scraping sides of bowl to make sure baking powder is distributed evenly. Stir in oats and chopped cashews.
Using a tablespoon, drop the dough onto parchment lined baking sheets. Using your fingers or the bottom of a glass, press the dough into ⅜ inch thick circles. Sprinkle the circles very lightly with a finishing salt. If you don’t have any fancy salt, you can use a very tiny pinch of Morton Kosher or table salt.
Bake until the cookies are light golden, about 12 to 14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet.
Makes about 30 cookies.
Kristen says
You have no idea how much I covet both the space and some of those books in your collection. 😀
The cookies look fabulous. They sound great for one of those salt-craving kind of days. 🙂
Erin says
I'm so jealous of all of your cookbooks! I have a lot of cookbooks, but no where near the number that you own. That's amazing. I enjoyed looking around your blog. You bake some very unique cookie recipes. It's refreshing to see.
Anna says
Debbi, yes. That's were all my money goes. Cookbooks.
Carla, I've never counted mine. The ones in the picture are just the ones I like using. I have another room full of cookbooks upstairs......the second tier cookbooks.
Carla says
HAHAHAHAH And I thought I had an obsession!! Have you counted your collection? I'm at 103 (and still going). I want to join a cookbook club!! I need to find one first. I'll have to show you my collection some time. My parents always yell at me that I have too many and I'm sure if I was married, my husband would say the same thing (but not complain when I use them 😉 )
I'll have to bake those cookies soon 🙂
Debbi says
So clearly all that contest money goes towards more cookbooks, huh?
Anna says
Shane, I bought that book and the muffin book because I liked how they put pictures next to each muffins. The recipes have been hit or miss. That book is one of the few I actually mark in and I've found it's kind of fun going back and read the notes I wrote in the book. But normally I don't mark in cookbooks.
Brenda, I only have one Paula Deen book -- the dessert book. I've been meaning to buy another one. I think my next big cookbook purchase will be Rebecca Rather's Christmas book. It's on pre-sale now, I believe.
Brenda says
I see we have a few of the same cookbooks. My husband thinks I have a lot--I need to show him yours so he will be quite...lol! My favorites are my Paula Deen Cookbooks.
Shane says
Ok, this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I loved the picture of your cookbooks. From what I can tell, I have about half of the same ones, but I'm curious...have you EVER baked a cookie using a recipe out of 1001 Cookie Recipes?? I received it as a gift, and finally re-gifted it when I realized I was not impressed. Interestingly, the RE-gift recipient re-gifted it as well. See a pattern?? It's a long standing joke.
Anna says
Hi Katie, I did too. That's why I made them ;).
Therese, the book says that a one ounce cookie has 125 calories, 8 grams fat, 3 grams protein, 7 grams complex carbohyrdrates. After that is says "5 grams sugar" which must fall into the 7 gram carb count.
Given your family's issue with sugar at the moment, maybe you should try this one with a litte Splenda or Splenda for baking.
Anna says
Amy, my collection is small potatoes. Seriously, if you think that is big, you should buy some more. Subscribe to a cookbook club. If you CAN keep up with all your cookbooks, than you don't have enough.
Small Batch Baking is a good one. My big issue with it is the authors' recipes are so good, you wish you had more to share!
As for posting recipes, I like to check because if the original source, say a book or food company, has posted the link themselves somewhere, then I link to that. If another blogger has posted the recipe, I sometimes link just to compare pictures or methods.
Hi Candy! You must be in withdrawal right now with no access to your kitchen. My goodness. Tell Eldon to hurry up.
Joe, thanks for the clarification. I clicked, saw the date and just put the date next to the recipe. Didn't bother to check the copyright date of the KA book, but in the back of my mind I thought "Boy, I didn't think I had the book that long!".
Katie says
ohh I love the sound of those
Therese says
Thank you Anna!
Your cookbook stand is how my ENTIRE basement looks!!! We are under construction down under and I truly don't know how anyone can get through it without losing their collective minds!
These cookies look fab! Would you happen to know the carb count off hand? I am thinking with nuts and whole wheat they should be less than most cookies.
Joe says
Anna -
Just a quick note, I made the recipe in May 2007. There is a "click to see where we talked about it" link at the bottom on the recipe. Because of the way blogger works, my recipes are pre-dated to before I even started the blog so they can be achieved and linked correctly. The KA book was not released until around Oct 2006 hee hee!
Candy says
I love this cookbook, too! These cookies look delicious! As soon as my painter (Eldon from Murphy Brown fame) is finished with my kitchen I'm going to try them. He's been painting my kitchen 2 months!Hope all is well with you.
Candy