Ah, January.  The time of the year when you’re fat, broke, cold and tired. Don’t you just love it?  I gotta admit, I really don’t.  I have a cold right now, which means that I’ve been forced to dry out (yup, spoken like a true alcoholic) because one glass of wine turns me into a snot monster from hell and frankly, I’m scared of choking on my own mucus.  Wow.  I just remembered that this is a food blog.

Anyway, on top of not being able to drink, I also can’t eat chocolate because my photographer who, usually, is the one who goes to the shop to get me chocolate is on a diet – and I feel I can’t send him just for me.  And I’m farrrrr too cold and tired to go get it myself.  Ergo, I have been forced to make do with other sweet treats, based on things I have in the house.  I present to you sweet cardamom dukkah.  Believe it or not, this will satisfy your sweet craving – promise.

Ingredients

20g peanuts

20g flaked almonds

20g pistachios

20g ground coconut

20g hazelnuts

5g ground ginger

seeds of 4 cardamom pods

2tbsp honey

Method

Step 1: preheat oven at about 160c and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Step 2: Using a mortar and pestle, bash up the whole nuts and cardamom seeds for a few minutes.  Stop when all nuts are fragmented but before they are dusty.

Tip: if any of your nuts still have skins on them, you may want to remove the skins first – totally optional.  One method of doing this is to roast them at a low temperature for about 5 minutes and then rub the skins off.  Hazelnuts can be a bit resistant to this treatment though, so an alternative method is to pop them into a pan of boiling water with a tbsp of bicarbonate of soda for a minute of two.  After this the skins should slide right off.

Step 3: pour all the nuts, including flaked almond and coconut, onto the baking tray, spread out evenly and sprinkle with ginger.  Place into the oven at 160c for 10 minutes; remove, shake the nuts a bit to help get them evenly roasted and drizzle with honey.  Return to the oven for a further 10-15 minutes, then remove and set aside to cool.

Step 4:  once cooled, use your hands to break up the mixture into granola-like crumbs, which can be stored in tupperware and used as a topping for fruit, porridge or – as shown here – homemade mango frozen yoghurt.

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, sweet cardamom dukkah.