Glazed Pecans

More than thirty years ago, I was noodling around with a candied pecan recipe. The original was too 'hard candy' shelled for my taste. I wanted something a little less hard on the teeth. Since this was long before the internet, I called someone in my church and asked about candy cooking and how temperature affected the outcome. After enough practice sessions, which my family didn't mind at all, I had what I thought was a great recipe. Everyone who tried my glazed pecans agreed that they should almost require a prescription because they were so addictive.

Years later, my daughter asked for the recipe. I couldn't find it. Plus, I am at this point in life where everything is packed. I knew I put everything that needed to be climate controlled [which includes all papers]  into the house, not the storage building. I was certain the box was in this house - somewhere. However, I took great care in this packing and moving process and sorted, cleaned, matched up items that had mates and labeled every single box with a list of the contents and placed a label on the top and one end of every box. I made sure the boxes were placed such that I could read the label. Mind you, towers of boxes have to be moved in every search process. And why, oh why, did I load the boxes of music and books in the room last? Oh, that might be the answer to the twelve pounds of weight I have lost. I might be a size three if I keep searching for stuff. I made one last valiant effort today to locate the box labeled My Handwritten Recipes.

FOUND IT. Yes, I was shouting.

So, for everyone's holiday pleasure, here is the recipe.

Glazed Pecans

3 cups shelled pecans [halves are preferred]
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Pre-grease a cookie sheet with butter.
Mix all ingredients except pecans and 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Boil to a soft ball stage - or 235° F using a candy thermometer. The "soft-ball” stage means that the "syrup" will form into a soft ball when you drop a bit of it into cold water to cool it down. You can get an accurate "feel" by rolling it around in the bottom of a cup of cold water - cold from the tap, not iced water. It will actually go from being kind of a string to sticking together in a soft little ball. Once you hit this stage, add the vanilla. The mixture will kind of foam up - that's my best description of the chemical reaction.
Stir in the pecans and stir to coat as evenly as possible and spread out as flat as possible on the buttered cookie sheet.
Allow to cool, then break them apart.
Put the separated pecans in a fairly large plastic container with a lid on it and shake the container for a few minutes to "dust" them so they are not sticky on your hands.

From my kitchen to yours.