Cinnamon Almonds, Mall Style

I'm going to see how many posts we can go with "style" in the title.  Maybe we'll post about Gangnam Style soon.


So, think back to about six-ish weeks ago.  You're in [insert appropriate name] Mall, and you're listening to the tenth rendition of Little Drummer Boy you've heard today.  You smell cinnamon almonds, because of course you do in December in the mall.  No matter how much you try to avoid that alluring cinnamony, vanilla goodness, you cannot. I think they maybe pipe it into the areas of the mall that aren't close enough for the smell to reach naturally, just to be jerks.

Okay, so can we talk about how those teeny tiny snack size bags of cinnamon almonds are five bucks?  Can we talk about how Christmas time makes me poor, and I want to cry that I can't afford snack almonds?

Guess whaaaaaat, now you can afford them! And it doesn't even have to be Christmas time, because I made these babies last night, what.

Okay, the recipe is as follows....

2+ T. butter

1 egg white

A pinch of salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups whole almonds

2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp.+ goooood vanilla

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Melt down your butter in a small bowl, and set aside.  In a medium bowl, whisk your egg white and salt together til frothy, then slowly pour in the sugar whilst whisking. It will become thick and glaze like. While you're whisking, you'll see it start to hold peaks, and then you're good.  Toss in 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, then all your almonds, and the second tsp. of cinnamon on top, and stir stir stir till it's all well coated.  Then, dump in your butter and vanilla* and stir more til everything is coated.  Taste that glaze, because, good crap, you'll die.

Dump your almonds and glaze onto a greased cookie sheet (a quarter sheet [9"x13"] cookie sheet if you've got it) and place it in the oven.  After 10 minutes, take it out and toss with a fork to re-coat and rotate the almonds.  Repeat this after another 10 minutes.  In about 5-10 minutes more (so a total cooking time of 25-30 minutes), you'll notice the glaze rather set and chunky on the almonds, and they're ready.  Don't wait for the glaze to be completely dry, you'll be too late!

Take them out of the oven, and let sit for a minute or two, then toss and break up any chunks.  Store them in an air-tight container - that is, if you don't eat them all at once.

This recipe is super easily doubled.  Dooooo it.

*I home-make my vanilla to get a strong and deeeeelicious flavor in all my baked goods.  I love, love it. In this recipe, try to use a real vanilla if you have it.  If not, imitation is fine.  But real is better.  Maybe someday soon, I'll post a how-to on homemade vanilla!