Saturday, December 11, 2010

Candied Almonds

Whenever I see (or smell!) the candied nut stands on the street, it reminds me of NYC. So many corners have these wonderful smelling stands, and I have fond memories of sharing the small packages of warm nuts with my husband.

Almost daily when I walk home from work, I pass the stands in Boston. I always think that I should make them, but have never taken the time to try. (And there's no reason why I shouldn't - we ALWAYS have large bags of almonds from Costco in our pantry.)

As the weather has cooled off, and the holiday season approached, I knew I had to give these a shot. They were SO EASY (and quick!) And much more affordable than the $3-$4 you pay for a small bag while out shopping.

These would make fantastic gifts to package up for friends for the holiday season!



CANDIED ALMONDS (Adapted from Tasty Kitchen Blog)
(With great, step-by-step pictures HERE)

1/3 cup Water, Plus 2 Tablespoons
1 1/3 cup Sugar, Divided
1 teaspoon Cinnamon, Ground
2 cups Raw Almonds
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Use a heavy saucepan (NOT the nonstick kind) and a wooden spoon.

First add the water, 1 cup of sugar and the cinnamon and stir. Bring it to a boil over medium heat.

Add the almonds to the mix, raise the temperature to high heat and stir CONSTANTLY until the water is almost completely boiled away (5-7 minutes).

Turn the heat to medium-low, and add your vanilla. After you stir your vanilla in, dump in the rest of your sugar. (I think I'll try using vanilla sugar next time, and cutting out the vanilla extract).

Stir until well coated with sugar - the mixture will be very dry at this time. Dump onto a cookie sheet to cool.



ENJOY!

3 comments:

  1. I told the entire twitter community how great these things are...because they're super great. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello!
    I work with Kristin on the Sew,Mama,Sew! blog (http://www.sewmamasew.com/blog2). Each November we post a series of tutorials, gift suggestions, recipes, shop features and giveaways every day. Our 6th Annual Handmade Holidays series consists of a great assortment of ideas to make the holidays unique, fun and handmade.

    We'd like to use one picture from your recipe this month:
    http://thedoctorsdishesdessertsdecor.blogspot.com/2010/12/candied-almonds.html
    We will not publish your recipe- just use one photo, a link to directly to your site and give you all of the credit, of course! Would this be OK? We respect the copyright of all crafters so all links and photos from blogs on our Handmade Holidays posts are used with permission. If you'd like to learn more about Handmade Holidays please see this compilation post from 2011: http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/2011/11/the-ultimate-handmade-holidays-list-2011/.
    Please let me know via email (irene@sewmamasew.com), and also feel free to include any relevant information you'd like me to post with the recipe link.
    We look forward to hearing from you,

    Irene

    Sew,Mama,Sew!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds yummy! I wonder if the salted, roasted almonds would be OK to use? Sometimes salty and sweet just hits the spot!

    ReplyDelete