Amish White Cashew Clusters • easy recipe! (2024)

FAQs

How do you soak and roast raw cashews? ›

A Note about Cashews

“Raw” cashews are processed and roasted to get them out of their shells and to neutralize a natural toxicity. Soaking for more than 6 hours can make them slimy and unpalatable. After soaking, immediately roast for 12 to 24 hours in a 200° to 250° oven.

Importance: The major cashew producers are India and Brazil. However, cashew is an important commercial crop in east Africa (e.g., Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya), southeast Asia (e.g., Vietnam, Indonesia), Central America (e.g., Costa Rica, Guatemala), and some South American countries (e.g., Peru, Venezuela, Colombia).

Cashews grow on cashew trees (Anacardium occidentale). As such, they're classified as a type of tree nut. Mature cashew trees grow red or yellow pear-shaped drupes called cashew apples. The cashews themselves grow inside of gray shells on the ends of those fruits.

Cashew plants contain a toxic substance called urushiol in the plants' leaves. This substance is also found in between the nut and the shell, making shelling these nuts a highly skilled and sometimes hazardous process.

a) Steaming – The in-shell cashews are steamed under pressure to soften the shell. This causes the cashews inside to become loose and easier to remove in time. b) Shelling – Each cashew shell is split open longitudinally and the cashew inside is immediately taken out by hand.

In addition to phytic acid, cashews also contain a large number of enzyme inhibitors. When too many of these inhibitors are present, it can make the nut hard to digest. Soaking is a way to neutralize some of these enzymes, allowing for proper digestion when you eat the cashews.

Why Soak Cashews? Any recipe that calls for cashew cream or cashew puree requires you to soak the nuts first. Soaking in water makes the cashews softer, which results in a smoother cream. The longer you soak the cashews, the softer they become, the smoother your cashew paste is going to be.

Like many nuts and seeds, cashews contain phytic acid, an anti-nutrient that can hinder mineral absorption. Soaking helps to reduce the phytic acid content, promoting better absorption of minerals such as zinc, magnesium, and calcium.

Roasting the cashew nuts to destroy the toxins is dangerous as well, as the toxins are released into the air. After the toxins are removed, the cashews must be graded and sorted. The entire process is labor-intensive as well as hazardous, which helps explain part of why cashews are so expensive.

How many cashews can you eat in a day? The nutty and creamy flavor of cashews can be tempting, and it's easy to end up consuming too much in one sitting. Try to consume no more than one ounce (28.35 grams) of medium cashew a day to reap health benefits. A single serving of cashews contains about 18 nuts.

What's healthier almonds or cashews? ›

These two delicious nuts are similar in many ways, but there are also some differences between cashews and almonds. Almonds are the more nutritious option. They're also cheaper than cashews, so they're a better all-around choice. If you're baking, go with almonds since they're easier to blend.

If you have allergies, be sure to check with your healthcare provider before taking cashew. Diabetes: Eating large amounts of cashew might increase blood sugar levels. But not all research agrees. If you have diabetes and use cashew, be sure to monitor you blood sugar carefully.

In fact, cashews are never sold in the shell — for a very good reason. The cashew nut is actually a seed surrounded by a double shell. The shell contains oils related to the same chemical in poison ivy that causes skin rashes, according to The Nutcracker Museum.

On the other hand, the fruits of the cashew, almond, and pistachio plants are not true nuts, but are rather classified as “drupes.” Drupes are fruits that are fleshy on the outside and contain a shell covering a seed on the inside. What we consume is this seed.

After the drupe has dried out, it's roasted over a fire or steamed in a boiler. The drupes are roasted for about 20 minutes, after which the hard outer shell will be more flexible. After cooling, they can then be cut open. Roasting must be done in an open-air space because the fumes can be toxic if inhaled.

In India, raw cashew nuts after steaming and cooling are placed on a flat stone and shelled to remove kernels with the help of hand cum pedal operated shell cutter. The separation of cashew kernel from the cut steamed nuts is carried out manually by using the sharp knife.

Heat mostly removes or denatures urushiol, the main chemical responsible for their toxicity, so roasted or cooked cashew nuts are generally regarded as safe to eat even with skin on, though some prefer to remove it by flaking off between the fingers for taste or texture reasons.