I found some black walnuts.

[grasswire]

I found one three ounce package of black walnuts. Packaged by Planters. Found it in a Safeway. Now I am on a hunt at other Safeway stores to see if I can find any more.

I've been wanting for a couple of years to make a particular cake that has black walnuts and 1/4 cup bacon fat in it -- the recipe is from a DU-er's grandma.

I know I could order some black walnuts online, but I'm a hunter-gatherer, I guess.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. There is nothing more wonderful

than black walnuts. My former mother-in-law made a black walnut cake - I have no idea how she did it since she never wrote anything down except that damn Tomato Soup Cake she claimed her son loved (he didn't) - that was so good, and I'm no big fan of cake, I think I could have eaten the whole think myself. Black walnuts in the cake AND the icing, which was, I think, a cream cheese-type with a faintly banana taste.

I almost wish the old bat back to life so that she could make one of those cakes again.

I'm curious. How much was the package? Black walnuts are always very pricey, aren't they?

[grasswire]

2. $3.95, but then it was half price off that

.....which made me wonder if it was a closeout of some kind. Only one package, and I didn't see any shelf sign for them. I asked if they would be getting more in, but the place was busy and the checker didn't have time to find out.

[supernova]

3. My grandma had a black walnut tree

in her yard. :9

She made a yellow layer cake with chocolate frosting and topped it with black walnuts from the yard. :9 :9

I should go up there sometime and get a clipping; see if I can propogate a BW tree here at my house. I'd love it.

Just out of curiosity, I googled black walnut cake bacon fat and didn't turn up anything. Got a lot of pound cake type recipes.

[grasswire]

4. black walnuts are HELL to crack

That's why they are expensive.

The recipe was posted on DU, in the lounge I think. I copied it and brought it to this forum. It was from DU user "youthere" -- from her grandma.

Here's my post from last year.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x42270

[ginnyinWI]

5. yeah they are!

We had a black walnut tree when I was growing up. The nuts fell on the driveway, and my dad would drive over them for a few weeks until the green husks were all off. Then it was up to someone (parents or one of us five kids) to shell them by pounding with a hammer on a concrete block. And then you had to pick the meats out with a pick.

They are good--but my mom's nut bread invariably turned up with pieces of shells in them.


A note to gardeners: you have to keep black walnuts away from your vegetable garden area, because the roots can be toxic to some plants. They won't poison you, but the garden won't thrive.

[csziggy]

9. We have two ancient black walnut trees that were here when we bought the farm

And now we have 'volunteer' BW trees all over the place where the squirrels hid the nuts. Some of the young trees are starting to produce nuts! If you cannot get a cutting off your grandma's tree, PM me and I will dig up a seedling and mail it to you.

I love black walnut ice cream and BWs in other things but I broke two nut crackers trying to get into the nuts. I have read that the best way to crack them is to put them into a hole in a railroad tie and smack the heck out of them. The nutmeats will end up coming out the bottom and you still have to pick out the shells.

If anybody wants to come to Tallahassee and gather BWs next fall, let me know - it looks like it should be a good crop.

[kestrel91316]

6. Commercial? Black? Walnuts?????? O.M.G. The holy grail.

[grasswire]

7. yeah!

Crazy, huh?

Many years ago my grandmother-in-law sent me, for a wedding present, a bag of black walnut meats. She was a Kansan. I knew nothing of black walnuts, really. And no idea how hard they are to crack!

[pleah]

8. I love black walnuts! I just got through cracking

enough black walnuts to equal almost 3 cups of nuts. Only got one blood blister. ;-)

I brought them back from the farm in November and just now getting around to picking them out.

There will be black walnut divinity this winter. YUM!

[Hubert Flottz]

10. Try some chopped up black walnuts in chocolate fudge...

Use the fudge recipe on the Hershey's Cocoa box and add the chopped black or English walnuts as you whip in the butter in the thickening process. My Mom used to mix black walnut pieces into the chocolate fudge and then top each square with half an English walnut. Mom made cakes candy and cookies with black walnuts and they were ALL very good.

Black walnut trees grow wild around here, so I've always had black walnuts whenever I had the energy to gather, hull, dry and crack them. The prolonged exposure to the black goo or tar(juglone)which the green hulls contain will blister your skin and it will stain your skin. Takes the stain a long time to wear off and I know of nothing that will remove the stain from the skin but time. ALWAYS use protective gloves when you hull black walnuts.


The native Americans in this area made flat stones with half round holes in them to use for cracking black walnuts. The walnuts were placed in the holes that were chipped out to fit the walnut shells and then they cracked them with other stones. I have seen several of these nut cracking stones that folks around here have found over the years. A couple of the ones I've seen were found near where the Shawnee made salt from several salt springs in the area.(Malden WV) The very salt springs where Mary Ingles once helped make salt as a captive of the Shawnee, as she and her children were being taken west by a Shawnee raiding party, to the main Shawnee town of Chalahgawtha(present day Chillicothe Ohio)on the Scioto river.