Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

So, as promised here's the second recipe for roasted almonds (the first being cocoa roasted almonds).

These are more traditional cinnamon roasted almonds, like the delicious smelling ones they make at the mall around Christmas.

Recipe:
2-3 pounds raw almonds
1/2 stick (4 Tbsp.) butter
1 Tbsp. vanilla
2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 cup sugar

Spread almonds in shallow baking pans or rimmed cookie sheets.  Place in the oven, then turn heat to 350° (don't pre-heat) and bake 5 minutes.  Stir almonds and bake an additional 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.

Melt butter, stir in vanilla and 2 teaspoons sugar.  Pour over almonds and stir until coated.

Mix together cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and 1/4 cup sugar.  Sprinkle over the almonds 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring after each addition.

Spread almonds on parchment paper or foil and cool 1 hour.

These are nice and spicy, I used mostly Penzey's Vietnamese Extra Fancy Cinnamon, which is a very bold and spicy cinnamon.  The ginger and nutmeg help round out the flavor, giving these a very warm, comforting spiciness, like pumpkin pie or ginger snaps.




And, again, I'm packing these up into decorative gift bags:

So festive, and a fairly easy homemade gift.  I figure that each of these cost under $4 to make, counting the almonds, other ingredients, bags, decorative paper, et cetera.  So really, these are great gifts - homemade, festive, economical, and edible!

Cocoa Roasted Almonds

I love roasted almonds.  You know around Christmas when they put that almond roasting booth up in the mall?  I can't get enough of that.  It just seems so festive and I'm not entirely sure why.  There's absolutely no reason to only have roasted almonds around Christmas.

A few years ago I came across a recipe for roasted almond and it was great, but these days I don't feel inclined to boiling almonds in honey and then coating them in sugar.  I've been experimenting in small batches and here is the first of two recipes for roasted almonds.

Recipe:
2-3 pounds raw almonds
1 stick (1/4 pound) butter
2 ounces dark chocolate
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup sugar

Spread almonds in shallow baking pans or rimmed cookie sheets.  Put them in the oven, then turn heat to 350° (don't pre-heat) and bake for 5 minutes.  Stir and return them to the oven and bake for an additional 8 minutes.  Remove from oven.

Melt butter and chocolate.  Pour over almonds and stir to coat.

Stir cocoa powder and sugar together and sprinkle it over the almonds 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring well after each addition.

Spread almonds out on foil or parchment paper and cool for 1 hour.

Pour the almonds into a large bowl, sprinkle with 1 additional tablespoon each of cocoa powder and sugar, and stir to coat.

Mmmm...toasty chocolatey almonds!

The combination of dark chocolate and cocoa powder gives them a nice chocolate truffle sort of flavor.  You could easily modify this to suit your own tastes, for example using milk chocolate instead of dark, adding cinnamon or other spices, or adding more or less sugar.

And of course homemade treats like this make lovely gifts:

All you need is a quantity of coffee tin tie bags (which is what they're called, you're welcome), decorative scrap booking paper, an attractive paper punch, a glue stick, and labels with an ingredient list.

And of course the time to punch out decorative shapes, glue them on bags, roast the almonds, and fill the bags.

Voila!  Thoughtful, attractive homemade gifts!