Christmas Treats with Walnettos

Tomorrow will be our Annual Christmas Party in our house, our 21st party since we got married, so I thought this would be a perfect time to try some recipes and some products I've been sent to test and reveal to all of you, Sisters and Brothers.  Your Chocolate Priestess is also getting back from a week long vacation in Las Vegas so I needed treats and food I could make quick.  I used the Walnetto Fudge Bars recipe from the Walnettos website and made sure to label the treats for our party since at least my husband has tree nut allergies and needs to not eat these.  It was the only type of fudgey treat that I made for our party -- I also made candies, cupcakes, and a few savory treats.

I decide to make a double batch simply because I have a lot of Walnettos and I dislike using half sticks of butter when I can use a full one.  I have all the ingredients I need at home so these are easy to pull together.  I'll get to use my candy thermometer that I rarely use so that's a bit of excitement for me.  I unwrap the candies and they resemble caramel with large chunks of walnuts in them; can you see it in the photo?

The chocolate in this recipe comes from cocoa powder which I always have on hand, I'm sure that doesn't surprise you, and I'm actually surprised because I don't normally encounter cocoa powder in candy recipes, generally it is chocolate so I can only hope this recipe is good.  Wish me luck, here I go making it.

Tips for Making this Recipe:

1) Keep stirring -- the Walnettos are very sticky and it takes them some time to melt thoroughly.

2) Have about three hours of free time -- again the Walnettos take some time to melt and you need to get it to a soft boil stage slowly and after all of that before you can beat in the butter and vanilla you need to get it back down to a lukewarm temperature.

3) Cool them for a short time in the frig before you cut them -- not too long, and that will depend on your frig, because they will get too hard to cut at all.  I let mine cool when I made a batch of cupcakes then cut the fudge bars while the cupcakes were cooling.

These turned out blah but I don't think it was the Walnettos' fault.  Too sweet overall the amount of sugar didn't allow the chocolate to come through at all.  I think I picked a poor recipe but given that this is The Chocolate Cult I had to pick something to try that had chocolate in it.  I disliked these so much that I refused to serve them at my party.

Walnettos are a treat I had never heard about until I made contact with their representative on LinkedIn.  I was very honored that they wanted us to try some of their products and I hope we will be on their list of places to send any new creations they come up with.  If you have any memories of Walnettos or a unique recipe you've made with them, please leave us a comment below and let us know.  However the failed attempt has taught me a lesson, too.  As you may or may not know, Sisters and Brothers, do not charge either you to read this site or the companies who send us products to try.  The expense of trying out a recipe like the one above is not small especially when it fails.  I will have to seriously think before accepting a non-chocolate product to try again.

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