Mes amis,

Today we celebrate the walnut! 14 Fructidor brings us Noix Day and we are making walnut brownies by adapting Rose Levy Beranbaum‘s delicious recipe for black and white pecan brownies from The Baking Bible.

In researching walnuts, I found that in China nearly symmetrical walnut shells are highly prized. There is a custom, dating back to 200 BCE where a person palms two walnut shells and moves them around in their hand, to promote circulation, seemingly like worry beads. Over time, the shells take on a polished and darker hue and a few years ago, walnut selling reached record highs in China. From the Reuters article:

“Walnut investments go up every year. A pair of walnuts at 350 yuan ($55) 10 years ago can sell for 3,500 yuan or even 20,000 or 30,000 yuan,” Hu said.

According to my Googling, that’s about $4,700. ALSO, walnut shells are used as canvasses for miniature carvings called “hediao.” The briefest of internet searches leads me to believe that “hediao” can be applied to any nut or fruit pit carving, but is mostly associated with walnuts. Check out these amazing carvings here and here.

UPDATED to bump up a truly wonderful comment:

So a little word lesson fun! 核桃 (he tao) means walnut in Chinese. “He” (核) means pit or stone. “Tao” (桃) means peach. Walnut means: stone peach. 核雕 (he diao) translates to pit or stone carving. And you are right! It can apply to any carving on a pit. 🙂

Walnut Brownies

1 cup of walnut halves

14 tbs of unsalted butter

3 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate

2/3 cups of unsweetened (alkalized) cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup plus 2 tbs of all-purpose flour

pinch of salt

Set the oven to 325. Melt the butter and the chocolate either in a double-boiler, or in my  usual super cheat-y way: Melting the butter first in a pan, turning off the heat and adding the chocolate and stirring until the chocolate is melted. As in all of my Rose Levy Beranbaum recipes, many shortcuts were used.

In an electric mixer, beat the melted chocolate mixture with the cocoa powder and sugar. Then, beat in the eggs and vanilla until just incorporated. Add the cream cheese in chunks, then the flour and salt. Mix until the flour is just incorporated – less than 30 seconds. Sir in the walnuts with a spoon.

In a 8 x 8 square pan lined with parchment paper and sprayed with cooking spray, pour in the brownie batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes until a knife inserted one inch from the edge of the pan comes out clean. I continued with Rose’s black and white brownie recipe which called for a white chocolate butter cream and then a chocolate ganache. The brownies themselves are delicious on their own. Enjoy!