— Mary Margevicius

So, uh, a lot of times, like I used to be, I used to work at a raw restaurant where it was all raw foods. So, um, that would be another consideration to actually not cook above a certain temperature. We would never go above 120 degrees or 140. It's been a while. Um, so we would soak our cashews overnight to be able to get them nice and pliable. So they would basically squish between your fingers. Um, but if you're not doing a raw dish, you can also just cook them in hot water. In fact, I usually just boil them, not just soak them in hot water, but I'll boil them just for 15 minutes to be able to make that happen and become very pliable. And then you soak them in a cold water to cool them down, then you can blend them up to be able to make a creme like a crema or cream out of them. But really the biggest thing between just soaking them in cold water versus putting them in hot water, um, is timing. It's how quick it happens. If you don't have eight hours to soak them, you can always just boil them instead, unless you're looking to do a raw dish, hope that helps.