I won't be any help, I used to crack them just the way you're doing. Dad had a board that he used a router to make an indentation in that the nut would fit into and I'd whack it with a hammer. Of course, we tossed them all into the driveway and ran over them first, to get rid of the outer hulls.

Dad would pick the nutmeats out and freeze them, my job was to break them apart.

I haven't done anything with them since he's been gone, he's the one that really loved them.

Annie

The crows in my neighborhood drop them in an intersection and wait for cars to drive over them.

I just watched this video and the only thing they added to make it easier is after the hammer he used wire clippers on the pieces to open them more. One trick that wasn't mentioned was in the final sort phase fill the bowl with water and the shells float nuts sink. You may want to start at the 5:31 mark

Here is a link that might be useful: How to harvest and crack black walnuts

We used an old iron anvil
And a regular sized hammer.
I would think the process would leave dents in a cutting board,

The nuts we had looked quite a bit different from
those in your pictures.
The shells were definitely black,
with much deeper and sharper ridges.

I wish we'd known about the wire cutter trick!

Rusty

I believe those are a variety of English walnuts, at least they are nothing like the variety of black walnuts common around here. Ours look like the ones in the video CLBlakely linked to.

But back to cracking them..... Our job as kids on the farm was to harvest black walnuts (bushel baskets of them), remove the husks, dry them in the hay loft of the barn, then crack and remove the nutmeat. We used the hammer, but instead of using the sidewalk my dad glued a thick sponge on the top of a brick for each of us so we could work in the hay loft. He cut an "X" through the sponge in two or three places and that's where we placed the nuts. The sponge held the nuts in place so we didn't bash our fingers and it kept the shells from flying everywhere. We picked the nutmeat out with toothpicks.

-Grainlady

Black Walnut and Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
1-1/4 c. butter
1 t. vanilla
3 c. oatmeal
1-1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. raisins or chocolate chips (optional)
1-1/4 t. cinnamon
1 t. baking soda
3/4 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
1 c. black walnuts

Mix sugar, egg, butter and vanilla together. Stir in dry ingredients and black walnuts. Spoon onto a cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven at 350-degrees F for 10-minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

I don't know if they're black walnuts or English walnuts, but they look different than the black walnuts we have which most certainly could not be cracked with a small hammer on a nice cutting board.

My parents have a black walnut that hangs over the corner of their house and the driveway. It does nothing but make a mess of the gutters, driveway and any car that is absentmindedly parked below it.

A few years back my aunt and uncle were visiting, and my parents parents failed to warn them when they parked their brand new Volvo under it. The next morning the white car had black stains all over it. After unsuccessfully trying to wash off the stains, my uncle went out and bought rubbing compound. It took so much elbow grease that he permanently ruined the finish. I later found out that when he got home he promptly traded it in for a new car. He's a retired Ford executive so with his discounts I guess that wasn't too much of a financial strain, but still!

But as for cracking them, I used to try as a kid but was never successful. Nut crackers definitely didn't work, and I remember trying things like sqeezing them in a vice and whacking them with a hammer, but I don't recall ever actually getting one open without smashing it to bits. (I didn't know the float trick.) Driving over them gets the outer soft layer off but that's about it.

I keep waiting for my parents to cut down that hated tree so I can try my hand at making cutting boards out of it, but the last quote many years ago was $3500 - it's big and there are power lines involved - so they're just living with it.

1. Do you have a drill press in your shop?

Set the vertical depth stop screw nuts to allow the spindle to go down just far enough to crack the nuts without crushing them. Find a tool bit that best conform to the shape of the walnut and secure that in the chuck. Use the hand feed lever to crack the walnuts. Do not turn on the motor.

2. Do you have a big pair of pump pliers?

Pump pliers jaws are adjustable. Adjust the jaws to fit the walnuts and crack them without crushing them.

dcarch

The black walnuts that I'm familiar with are the large round ones in the video. They stain everything they touch. I've never eaten them, just see them lying around.

Ann, that board is lovely. The perfect background for the food. Is that one of your figured maple boards?

I suppose I should clarify I am not sure the float trick works with "Black" walnuts but it does regular ones

I was told that they were black walnuts. But I agree they look nothing like the black walnuts in that video. They have traces of black on their shells and look Similar to the walnuts in this link.

Maybe there is a difference between Eastern Black Walnuts and the ones that grow on the west coast?

The cutting board I used was not wood. It was a little hard plastic board and once I got the hang of how hard to hit the nut, it became easier. Just a a couple of taps on the walnut "seam" and the nut cracked open.

Cloudy, it is one of the western maple boards with spalt figures.

Ann

Here is a link that might be useful: Walnuts

There are many varieties of walnuts. Every fall I buy 9 pounds (or more) new crop shelled Chandler walnuts from a friend with a family walnut ranch.

English walnut trees are usually grafted to black walnut root stock as it is very hardy. I'll have to ask my friend if they ever have any black walnuts. I like the flavor. It reminds me of my grandmother who also liked the flavor. I remember that she had a belt made from polished slices of black walnut shell made before my time.

Eileen

Here is a link that might be useful: There are 37 varieties of walnuts grown in California.

The shape of your nut meats look like English walnuts to me with two chambers. Black walnuts have four chambers. We had a black walnut tree in NH - miserable tree. Good looking brownies though, if they are English walnuts. I think the black ones are an acquired taste.

/tricia

English walnuts are grafted to black walnut stock! Wow, I never heard that. I bet that would mean they'd also make it impossible for anything else to grow near them. The roots of black walnuts release a chemical that inhibits the growth of most other plants. I think that's why there are so many places named "Walnut Grove."

We have many black walnut trees on our property and in our neighborhood. We gather the nuts that the squirrels don't take in gallon buckets and sell them to a man who comes around every fall. We can get either cash or shelled nutmeats (about three week delay) or a combination of the two.

I don't particularly like the earthy flavor of black walnuts so usually trade the nutmeats we get for shellbarks, a variety of hickory nuts that is my favorite nut for baking.

When we used to shell them ourselves, we used a hammer and wooden "donuts". We'd line up about six donuts with a walnut in each and then whack them. The wooden holders kept the broken shell contained. We used needle-nosed pliers to open up the cavities and the curved metal nut picks to finish off the job.

The variety we have has four nut cavities instead of two like English walnuts so we can't get walnut halves like the ones on your brownies.

Ruthanna, do you remember shellbark creams? They were soft-centered dark chocolates, with hickory cream centers. Zipf's made them long ago. Oh, so good.

We spread them on the basement floor on a thick layer of newspapers and used a small sledge hammer to crack them.

I shelled a couple of black walnuts a long time ago when I lived in the Midwest. I got black stains on my hands and clothes, and a few miniscule pieces of broken nut meats. Not worth the work.

I had a black walnut tree in my back yard cut down. It is too small for the wood to be worth much, so I burnt it as firewood. That gave me some satisfaction. The roots were toxic to some plants like tomatoes. My neighbors had a big walnut which grew over the driveway. It regularly dropped walnuts which left messy black stains on the driveway.. I never got them to trim it back to their own property.

Cheryl

Is that panuche frosting on the brownies? I'd love the recipe if it is. One of my Grandmothers made that and we don't have her recipe.

I had tons of them up at the lake when I lived there along with pecans. Mine were like the one in the video and to much trouble/time for the end product for me. What a mess they were, sounded like giant hail stones when they hit the roof. I let the squirrels and other critters have them. I fought them for the pecans though! Never had to buy them back then, stored a years supply in the freezer.

David

CC, yes I remember them. My grandmother loved Zipf's candies, especially the shellback creams and apricot creams. I think we used to get them in downtown Pottstown, back when people shopped in downtown stores.

You guys are killing me!

I adore black walnuts, and they are virtually impossible to find in California. Only people who moved here from other areas know what I'm talking about when I rhapsodize about black walnut ice cream.

Haagen Daz has stopped making their black walnut ice cream. I'm sooooo sad........

David, No it is just my caramel sauce.

The black walnus I have here are like the ones in the video also, not like Ann T's. They're a mess to deal with and more work than they are worth to get out of the shell, plus they are bitter. I don't like them, but Dad loved them. e also had a butternut tree, I liked those better.

Both trees, however, give off juglone from their roots, making it impossible to grow most other things within a distance from their roots. I found that beans would grow, but rhubarb wouldn't, not even horseradish.

I love trees but when I bought the farm I had them both cut down, they made a huge mess and when you hit a black walnut with a lawn mower they turn into a projectile, capable of breaking windows and messing up the mower blades. The butternut tree was older than me and apparently hollow, one night it just fell over and so I didn't have to deal with feeling guilty over cutting down Dad's butternut tree.

We'd take 5 gallon buckets full of the black walnuts and dump them on the back of the property, I only wish we could have sold them. We can't give the darned things away and I still have black walnuts on the property.

annie

Mmm, carmel sauce works for me! I've made your brownies more than once over the years. Thinking it may happen this weekend.

David

When I lived in CA as a kid, my parents would get bushels of whole walnuts from the farmer's market in Selma. Dad and I would crack them for Mom in the living room over a couple sheets of newspapers while we watched Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Friday Night Fights together around the holiday season. We'd have contests to see who could get the most out of the shell without breakage of the nut meats. The winner got the end piece of the first banana bread loaf Mom made since that was both our favorite part of the bread. Fun memories. We don't crack nuts anymore but they are available with mixed types of nuts in bulk bins. Maybe I'll get a few pounds this year and crack them with the G-kids. Bet they've never cracked them!

/tricia

I agree with grainlady. I think you have a variety of english walnut. I grew up surrounded by black walnut trees and the nuts look like the one in CLBlakey's video link. They are much more difficult to crack and extract the nuts from and don't come out in the nice half nut shape like yours. The taste is very different, also. That said, I've never seen an english walnut with the black residue on it that yours has. Maybe a different variety. Interesting!