Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds

You know those nuts you can get at carnivals and festivals, the warm, sweet, crunchy nuts that you can smell a mile away? Well, after blowing six bucks for a small bag of roasted almonds two days in a row, I decided enough was enough. And since, conveniently, we had a pound of raw almonds handy, why not give it a shot?

Found a basic recipe on allrecipes.com (love this site!) for Cinnamon-Roasted Almonds. Since there were a ton of user comments, I made some variations right off the bat. And after tasting them, I'll have a few more changes to make for next time.

First off, I decreased the almonds from 4 cups to about 2 1/2 (essentially doubling the coating, so you could keep it at 4 cups and just double the coating ingredients if you wanted to make more). I also increased the cinnamon from 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp. I also baked them for 1 1/2 hours instead of 1 hour, attempting to achieve maximum crunch.

The verdict? Delicious! Make sure you let them cool most of the way before sampling, as they will be fairly chewy until the coating has had a chance to harden.

My suggestions for next time: cut the salt in half (to 1/8 tsp), use brown sugar instead of white (or maybe half and half), and up the cinnamon (1 1/2 tsp maybe? or 2?). I'll try it again and let you know how it goes!