I have had a very tough time with my Christmas shopping this year. I just don’t know what to get people anymore. I think I used to be pretty good about buying good gifts but not anymore! I always do a gift exchange with my book club. This year I bought a gift for the wrong person!! So embarrassing! I don’t know what happened. I did question whether I was buying for the right person because we had to draw names twice. The first time we drew names someone got their own name so we had to draw again. So, I knew that I had either Callie or Melissa but I could not find my slip of paper to confirm this. But, I was pretty sure it was Melissa. Nope, I was wrong. And it wasn’t Callie either, it was Alicia! Whoops! I offered her the wooden spoons I bought for Melissa, but she wasn’t too interested!
Last year, I made all of my friends a tray of Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls. Have you guys had these cinnamon rolls before? They are the BEST cinnamon rolls ever! Pioneer Woman packages them up and drops them off at the houses of all of her friends and family. Such a good idea! Unfortunately, I just wasn’t able to get my act together this year. So, no cinnamon rolls. (Sorry friends!) Instead, I made everyone homemade salted caramel sauce. It was super good, but I’m sure everyone would have preferred Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls! So, if you are like me, and you like to give out homemade Christmas gifts to your friends and family but you are just running out of time then this is just the recipe for you.
Kelly and I had big plans to post all kinds of recipes that would make good Christmas gifts. Even though we started doing our holiday posting in November we didn’t get done nearly as much as we planned. At the last minute on Saturday we decided to make candied almonds. We already had all the ingredients, after all. I am soooo glad we did. I have made candied almonds on the stove top before. I always thought they turned out really well. That is until I tried this baked version. 1 million times better. I will never make them on the stovetop again. Plus, easy clean up! They were so good that we pushed up this post in order to allow you time to make them as last minute Christmas gifts. Seriously, they were so good. Trust me. In fact, I will be stopping at Costco to pick up a giant sized bag of almonds to make more Christmas gifts!
Here is what you'll need
Whisk the egg white, water and vanilla extract until frothy
Add the almonds and coat
Mix together the sugar, cinnamon, and fleur de sel
Add to almonds and mix
Spread in an even layer on a parchment lined baking pan and bake for 1 hour. Stir every 15 minutes.
Good enough to give as gifts but you'll want to keep them for yourself instead!
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Ingredients
1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon water
1 pound almonds
3/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 ½ teaspoons of Fleur de Sel (if you don’t have fleur de sel, just use regular salt)
Directions
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Line a large baking sheet, or in my case a round pizza pan, with parchment paper. Using the bowl from your stand mixer add egg white, vanilla extract, and water. Using the whisk attachment, mix everything until frothy. Add the almonds coat thoroughly. In a separate bowl combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Stir into almond mixture. Make sure every almond is coated in sugar. Spread the mixture evenly onto your baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour. Stir the mixture every 15 minutes. Once the almonds are cool you can divide them up into jars and give them away as gifts. Or keep them for yourself!
Source: My Baking Addiction
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