Holidays are cashew crunch time at Dinstuhl's

The holidays are a busy time of year for the folks at Dinstuhl's, a locally owned candy shop more than 100 years old. And one of the most popular items, along with fudge, marzipan (seasonal only) and chocolate holiday houses, is the beloved cashew crunch.

"We do 40 percent of our annual sales in six weeks," said Dinstuhl's president Rebecca Dinstuhl.

That's a lot of cashew crunch, which is similar to peanut brittle, though much better. A brittle is made, cashews are added, and each 22-pound batch is poured from a big mixer onto a bed of coconut dusted over a steel table. More coconut is added to the top, then it's rolled out, scored into about 1-inch squares, cut into bigger squares to move to another table, then eventually hand-tossed in a basket to remove little bits and pieces. The delicious debris that comes from the bottom of the shaker is purchased by a restaurant, where it's added to a dessert. At Dinstuhl's, they can make three batches an hour.

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So it's great to eat out of hand, but here are a few other things you can do with cashew crunch, whether with crumbs in the bottom of the box or crumbs you make on purpose:

• Sprinkle it over ice cream.
• Add it to, or atop, a cheesecake.
• Put in on coconut cake, or add it to the middle layer of frosting for a surprise.
• Dip frozen bananas in chocolate and roll in cashew crunch crumbs.
• Add it to brownies. Here's a link to a recipe for adding peanut brittle to blondies; you can adapt it for cashew crunch or add to your favorite brownies.