This month for the Secret Recipe Club I received the Saturday Evening Pot , a husband and wife team creating and sharing different recipes. Since it was the Super Bowl this weekend I decided to do my spin on a recipe they shared for some Toasted Brown Sugar Almonds as a part of a pie topping. We love to snack on all kinds of nuts, especially almonds. Add in some butter and brown sugar and we are especially all over them.
For their recipe they used the oven and broiler to toast the nuts and melt the brown sugar onto sliced almonds. Since I was going for something more on the snack side of things I chose whole almonds. Since I am also notorious for having a mental block whenever the broiler is involved and have burned many, many things to a crisp, I decided managing this recipe on the stovetop was going to be the way to go for me.
I also can’t ever keep myself from tweaking and adding, so by the time I was done I had taken a simple recipe and apparently added some complications. It was worth it and the ingredients were simple. The stovetop method took some more work, but ultimately I loved how the sugar and spices ended up caramelizing into an almost brittle-like coating.
Brown Sugar & Cinnamon Almonds
3 cups whole almonds
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
3 tablespoons water
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
In a large, heavy pot melt the butter over medium low heat. Add the almonds and stir frequently until the butter is just a bit browned and the almonds smell toasted and fragrant. Add the brown sugar, water, salt and cinnamon and stir well to coat. Continue stirring frequently over low heat until the sugar mixture has caramelized on the almonds and the remainder is a bit syrupy – about 8-10 minutes. Line a baking sheet with lightly oiled foil and pour the almonds out onto the foil. Use a nonstick spatula to spread the almonds in a single layer to cool. Cool completely before snacking.
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