Best Candied Almonds Recipe

Candied Almonds are probably one of the yummiest snacks available on any German Christmas Market. If you’ve ever had the good fortune to visit one of these old, traditional markets you will know what I’m talking about. Just the smell of the sweet, freshly roasted nuts makes my mouth water. I am nearly ashamed to say that it took me until very recently to try to make these myself. I love snacking on nuts. I used to really enjoy nut brittle until I broke a bit off one of my molars! Thankfully my dentist was able to fix it within a couple of days. Still, ever since then I’ve since given the nut brittle a wide berth.

The best candied almond recipe came into existence after trying out a couple of nut brittle candied nut recipes. These candied nuts are a great alternative because you can adjust the hardness of the candy coating. And you can make them with a variety of different nuts and/or flavours. I prefer to make them with the traditional almonds and tend to add some cinnamon as a spice to the sugar coating. These candied nuts are egg free, dairy free, vegan, gluten free and if you substitute the almonds with seeds or even chickpeas they can be nut free too. Therefore they are a great allergy free alternative to any commercially bought product.

Makes about 700 g/1.5 lb of the Best Candied Almonds

Preparation Time: 20 min

Ingredients for Cinnamon Candied Almonds

  • 1 cup/180g sugar
  • 2-3 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/3 cup/80ml water
  • 2 1/3 cup/400g almonds
  1. Line a baking sheet with baking paper and set aside.
  2. Measure out the nuts and set aside.
  3. Using a medium size pot mix the sugar with the cinnamon and add the water.
  4. Heat at a medium heat until the mix starts to boil and form bubbles.
  5. Continue to heat the mix occasionally scraping down the sides of the pot for about 5-10 minutes. Make sure to protect your hands from the liquid, you might want to wear oven mits.
  6. Check the temperature of the liquid with a candy thermometer until it reaches 238˚F/114˚C.
  7. Add the nuts to the mix until all the nuts are evenly coated and then remove the pot from the heat all the time staring the nut and sugar mix.
  8. Turn the content of the pot onto the baking sheet and spread the nuts out evenly. As the nuts cool down the coating will change from shiny clear to dull as the sugar crystallises once again.
  9. Break up any large pieces with the spatular. Place the parchment paper with the nut onto a cooling rack to reduce any chance of moisture forming as the nuts cool down completely.
  10. You can store the nuts in an airtight container or wrap them in little portion size paper bags.

The more liquid you add (up to 1/3 of a cup) the softer the coating will be, if you want to crisp up the candied nuts you made you can place them on an oven proof rack and bake them in a pre-heated oven at 320˚F/160˚F the oven for about 5 minutes.

You won’t be disappointed with this recipe, the likelihood that these nuts won’t last very long is quite big! They make for very nice little gifts when visiting friends. You can obviously make these in much bigger quantities too.

Try making these with other kinds of nuts or even seeds like pumpkin seeds. Chilli or cayenne pepper works surprisingly well with pumpkin seeds. If you are using roasted chickpeas instead of the nuts any kind of hot curry spice is really nice too.