Roasted almonds are one of my favorite sweets during christmas time. They are very easy to make and a perfect bring along for parties.

Ingredients

• 200g almonds
• 200g sugar
• 3 tbsp water (40g)

Instructions

Mix the sugar and the water in a pot. At first it may look like 3 tbsp water is too little, but trust me its not.

Bring the mixture to a boil. Once it starts you will notice a lot of bubbles and foam forming. Add the almonds and stir occasionally.

After a few minutes most of the water will have evaporated and the sugar will become a thick mass. Now you have to stir constantly!

Once the sugar starts crystallizing you have try to move the almonds around a lot as the sugar will start to caramelize on the bottom soon. The key here is to stir so the crystallizing sugar can stick to the almonds.

Once most of the sugar sticks to the nuts you have to be careful to not over do it. You want to let the sugar on all almonds caramelize a bit, but you do not want the sugar to fully melt again. If it melts the nuts will look super glossy, but the sugar skin will be very hard. The goal is to keep a lot of the crystallized crunchy sugar on the almonds as possible.

Personally I stir until I see that the first almonds get glossy and then instantly pour all of them on a baking tray (with baking paper). If possible try to separate them with whatever tool you used to stir. Do not touch them with your hands yet, the sugar will burn you pretty bad!

Wait until the almonds have fully cooled down and try to not eat them all at once.

Tips

You can add spices such as 1/4tsp cinnamon or a pinch of gingerbread spice to the sugar water mix at the beginning for some additional flavor.

Never, NEVER add anything acidic to the sugar. Something chemical reaction will happen and the sugar will no longer crystallize. Instead it will get thick hot mass after the water has evaporated. The sugar will become hotter and hotter and at some point the nuts will burn badly and you have to throw them all. I blew through several batches testing new recipes, changing temperature, water content, etc until I finally realized what actually happened.

Cleanup is very easy. Just let the pot and whatever you used to sir sit in hot water for 20 minutes.