Toasting almonds (or walnuts, pecans, hazel nuts):

[hedgehog]

If I have whole nuts, and plan on grinding them into chunks before adding them, do I toast the whole nuts, or the chunks?

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. what are you going to use them for?

Toasting does improve the flavor - we use a toaster oven, on 300 for 10 minutes, but watch carefully. We have jars of sliced almonds (use the food processor and do them in big batches), and toast them for use. More surface area to be exposed, toastier flavor. For Walnuts, we break them by hand before toasting (for us, they end up in granola and on top of salads and to top roasted veggies). We toast pecans whole before chopping them in 2 for pies. I would think you can treat hazel nuts like almonds - use a food processor to chop slightly, then toast.

Just a few ideas!

[hedgehog]

2. I'm going to be adding them to fruit cake - I think they will

go better if I give them the lightest touch in the food processor so i end up with broken nuts instead of whole almonds.

[pscot]

3. Toast them whole

I just put them in the toaster oven and set it for toast.

[hvn_nbr_2]

4. thekitchn.com says roast them whole

The instructions I got at thekitchn.com say roast them whole. If chopped first, the chopped bits are more likely to get too done too fast. They also say to stir them every 3-5 minutes.

I suggest that you keep out a couple raw light-colored nuts like cashews for visual comparison to check for doneness. If you look only at the toasting nuts with no comparison to raw, they'll probably be overdone before your eyes realize that they're getting done.

BTW, I didn't misspell the website name. They spell it without the 'e' in kitchen. I don't have an opinion on the website yet; I just found the link for roasting nuts on google, and haven't explored further on the site.