Macadamia nuts are tough little suckers.

I used to think they were one of the most overpriced nuts on the market. But after a fateful weekend, this girl has learned that she knows absolutely nothing and should keep her mouth shut.

It begins: Earlier this month, some friends and I stopped at the Ventura College flea market. While the market itself was nothing to crow about, the campus was: Macadamia nut trees – tens of them – lined the outside perimeter of the campus. With bags in tow, we began to collect as many unshelled mac nuts as we could. I was giddy with the delight of not having to pay through the nose for them, even contemplating making the two-hour drive monthly for my fix.

My first project would be a macadamia nut tart. How beautiful it would be, with a homemade crust and studded with uniform, chopped mac nuts. I’d serve it with vanilla or praline ice cream, we’d sit on the porch and shoot the breeze, or sit in silence, watching the ribbons of melted ice cream pooling alongside the warm tart.

Now, I had heard that macadamia nuts were hard to crack, but people say the same things about walnuts and almonds. I paid no heed.

Was I ever sorry. These things are serious. This was not a job for a steel nutcracker. This was a job for a steel military tank. I didn’t have access to the latter.

But, be damned, I was going to have my macadamia nut tart. So I explored my options.

A Google search revealed that I was in good company – a slew of sites and blogs featured different methods in which to crack macadamia nut shells open without smashing the nutmeat into smithereens. Vise grips. Roasting. Hammers. Putting them in the freezer. Wedging them into sidewalk cracks and pounding them open. (There was also, ironically, this blog post on a key that opens them, which is commercially sold with unshelled macadamia nuts. I’m jealous.) All of these methods seemed crazy, but according to these sites, they were the only way to get into them unless you had access to the Mauna Loa plant.

I tried one method of roasting them at 350 degrees for 15 minutes to dry out the shells. I’m not quite sure this made a difference, but it did release a buttery roasted nut smell that made me want to get into them even more. Since I didn’t have a vise grip/bench vise, I grabbed a hammer, a towel and a cutting board and set up shop in the middle of my living room. I chose a nut to sacrifice, raised my hammer high above my head and came down on it with such force that it shook the entire room. BOOM. I unwrapped the towel, and the nut was broken alright – but inside was a black, crumbly mass; moldy and inedible. What gives? Furious. I needed to take this outside.

I spent a full hour busting nuts with my hammer. To my right was a pan of broken shells and rotten nuts, to my left, a measly pile of crushed macadamia nuts, barely yielding 1/4 cup. My arms ached, my knees hurt from kneeling. I was defeated, but I needed to make something with these or my efforts would have been in vain. Obviously, a glorious tart was out. And after a quick search on my favorite blogs, banana bread was in. Hallelujah, let’s finish this.

The recipe is from Simply Recipes. It’s simplicity was much appreciated – after spending an hour on my hands and knees smashing nuts, I needed something that required almost nothing from me. This was perfect.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of chopped walnuts. In went my scant 1/4 cup of macadamia nuts, with a handful of peanut butter chips for good measure. They smelled lovely, and tasted even better. Every once in awhile my tongue would flirt with a tiny macadamia nut piece, a little treasure that teasingly reminded me I’ve been wrong all these years about the high cost of macadamia nuts.

• Other things I learned (the hard way):
  The method: If you ever want to try the hammer method, here’s a tip: Cover it with a towel, and try to strike only a portion of the shell instead of head-on. Smashing it right in the middle will crumble the delicate macadamia. By striking it from the side, you have a better chance of the shell shattering and yielding a whole nut. I must tell you that this method only gave me 2 whole macadamia nuts. (Huh. So maybe this isn’t a good tip after all.)
• On the biggest macadamia nut producer in the U.S.: Hawaii is a mellow and laid back state because behind closed doors, its people take out all of their pent-up aggression on breaking coconuts and macadamia nuts. Seriously.
• To reiterate: The high price of macadamia nuts is indeed justified. This girl will never complain again.

– Cynthia Furey

Side note: March Madness is a month-long challenge in which I will post Monday through Friday for the entire month. I hope you will humor me in reading!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Baking/desserts, In the kitchen, Muffins/quickbreads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.