This recipe has a story…I used to buy this kind of almonds at Costco mainly during holiday time, and I’d go through many many jars. Initially my husband did not care for it, so I knew that the almonds were all for me and I had a sense of how long the almonds would last me. But one day he decided that he liked the almonds and I could see the almonds in the jars disappearing in front of my eyes very fast. That was not the issue…the issue was that Costco stopped carrying the product, and he even called the Costco buyer in Seattle. Well, that was the end of my cinnamon almonds until I searched the internet and saw many different versions of it. In the end, all worked for better. Not only I could manage the amount of sugar, the cost of these roasted cinnamon almonds came much cheaper than the Costco ones…so I am all happy again with my almonds. Be aware, these almonds are addictive! You cannot stop eating them once you start, so be careful…you have been alerted!
I took these almonds to work and a lot of people asked for the recipe, so here it is…
Ingredients:
4 ½ cups almonds
1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Method:
Preheat the oven at 250F.
Add the vanilla extract to egg white and mix until slightly frothy. In another bowl mix the sugar, salt and the cinnamon, set aside.
Add the mix of egg white to the almonds and mix until all the almonds are covered with the egg white.
Add the sugar mix to the almonds covered with egg white and mix gently until all the almonds are covered with sugar.
Spread the almonds in prepared trays (I used 2 baking sheet) and bake for 1 hour at 250F, flipping the almonds every 20 minutes, so the almonds do not stick to the baking sheet.
Remove the almonds from the oven, let them cool completely and store in an airtight container.
Did you know that almond is not a nut but a drupe? A drupe is a fruit that has a fleshy part in the outside with a hard shell with a seed inside. So almond is mainly sold with shelled or unshelled.
