Candied Cinnamon & Sugar Almonds
These candied cinnamon & sugar almonds are beyond easy and delicious and are a heck of a lot cheaper to make at home than buy at the mall!
Everyone, please welcome these absolutely terrific and easy cinnamon sugared almonds. You know, like the kind you pay an armload for at the mall.
The almonds are coated in a silky cinnamon and sugar coating that turns crunchy and candy-like in the oven.
These babies are positively addicting and packaged in a cute tin or box and wrapped in a ribbon they make a delightful, edible holiday gift.
The real bonus? They are easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy (as my 6-year old likes to say) to make and I even included step-by-step photos. So what are you waiting for, make some!
One Year Ago: White Bean Turkey or Chicken Chili
Two Years Ago: Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Candied Cinnamon & Sugar Almonds
Ingredients
- 1 egg white
- 1 teaspoon cold water
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cups unsalted almonds
- ½ cup (106 g) packed light brown sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Line a large (11X17-inch) rimmed baking sheet with foil and lightly spray with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Add the water and vanilla and beat again until stiff. Add the almonds to the mixture and stir gently to coat the almonds with the egg white mixture. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar, salt and cinnamon. Add this mixture to the almonds and stir gently to mix well.
- Pour the almonds out onto the prepared baking sheet and carefully spread them out into a somewhat even layer. Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake for about an hour, stirring/flipping every 15 minutes, until the almonds look and feel dry. To check to see if the almonds were done, I carefully picked one up in my fingers and when I pressed around it, I didn’t get any wet sugar on my hands. The coating on the almond felt hard and crunchy. Cool completely before serving or packaging.
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Recipe Source: from my sister, Cerissa!
Here’s the egg white after being beaten for about 30 seconds. It is starting to get foamy but has a while before stiff peaks form.
After a minute or so the egg white is even more foamy! Exciting stuff, eh?
Here we go, baby. This is how you want the stiff peaks to look…stiff! It usually takes me and my mixer about 4-5 minutes to get to this point. It will vary based on the temperature of your egg white, mixer speed, etc.
Add the vanilla and water and mix again until the egg white is stiff.
Add in the almonds and gently mix.
In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon and salt. And mix it up.
Add the brown sugar mixture to the egg white/almond mixture.
Gently stir it all up.
Turn out the almonds onto the prepared baking sheet.
Spread ’em.
When they are in the best even layer you can manage, pop them in the oven.
Flip and stir every 15 minutes or so. This will be messy and you’ll be questioning my sanity as it seems like all the coating is running off. Don’t worry, it works, I promise. This is me stirring the almonds after about 15 minutes. Not even close to being done as you can see.
This is after about 45 minutes. Close, but not quite done yet. You’ll have less mess on your baking sheet because I forgot to grease mine. Oops.
To test for doneness, I grab one of the toasty almonds in my fingers and gently press to see if the coating is hard and crunchy. If some of it stickily sticks to your fingers, they need more time in the oven. These look just about perfect.
Let the almonds cool completely before serving or packaging.
Can you use pasteurized egg white product for this?
Yes
Totally making these tomorrow.
Has anyone tested the outside limit of how long these will keep? – thinking of making today and putting in sterilized (but not vacuum sealed) glass jars and hoping they keep till at least Christmas day – so around three weeks.. Just hoping they don’t go sticky?
Very good. I have made it three times so far. The first two times I made the recipe as written and it was very good. The third time I wanted to make it sweet and savory. I added 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne, 1/2 teaspoon cumin and 1/2 teaspoon dried ground orange peal. The cayenne made it very slightly spicy. We could not taste the orange peel or the cumin. If I make it again I might try adding 1 teaspoon of the cumin and orange peel and/or some curry powder or chili powder. Has anyone else made this recipe into a spicy blend? If so what are the measurements of spices?
I used raw almonds, and the texture at the end was not as crunchy as I would have liked so I increased the temperature to 350 for the last 15 minutes to get a higher roasting temperature and increase the crunch in the nuts.
Not sure if anyone will find this helpful, but this recipe can be veganised by subbing the water from canned chickpeas for the egg white. Treat it the same way by whisking til it forms peaks and add sugar.
Delicious recipe, totally addictive and for that I thank you Mel!
That’s a great tip, Claire – thank you!