Candied Cinnamon Almonds
Although we are getting late into the holiday season, I wanted to put together some homemade DIY gifts to give to friends and neighbours. Of course, my immediate go to is food related when it comes to gifts and DIY’s so I whipped up a batch of Candied Cinnamon Almonds. I make several varieties of homemade roasted nuts from spicy to sweet, rosemary, orange, you name it! For this batch I decided a sweet treat was the way to go and cinnamon is always a favourite, its definitely mine! I always have bags of unroasted almonds on hand for all of my baking so that’s why I chose almonds for this recipe but you could certainly do mixed nuts, that would be awesome as well! Best part is that you could make big batches of these and give them out as gifts any time of year. They’d make great hostess gifts too, paired with a bottle of wine!
And then I had to wrap these up in some cute packaging so I came up with not one, but two fun and pretty gift wrapping ideas. This adds that extra personalized touch and can be used for packaging other gifts, it’s also a great way to get the kids involved in some crafting too.
First up, let’s get started with the recipe!
Candied Cinnamon Almonds:
- 1 egg white
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 3 quarter cup almonds, unroasted
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- Preheat oven to 250°F. Grease baking pan.
- In large bowl, add egg white, vanilla and salt. Mix until frothy.
- Add nuts and mix until well coated.
- In separate bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon together.
- Add sugar and cinnamon mixture to the nuts and toss all together.
- Place onto prepared pan.
- Bake 50-60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.
As mentioned above, this is a very simple recipe and it takes no time to make at all. Just be sure to mix the nuts every 15 minutes or so. You’ll definitely want to make a few batches because they’ll barely last to actually have enough for gifts! Now moving on to the gift wrapping!!
The first of the two gift wrapping ideas is to use simple mason jars which you can find anywhere nowadays. I’ve linked some below, for this I went with a cute mini size.
To jazz up the mason jar, I used these paper lace doilies which were the perfect size. I simply placed it in between the lid and instant pretty touch! Tied it off with some red and white ribbon and added a tag secured in place by the lid. This is the perfect size gift for these candied nuts and again, would be a great addition to a bottle of wine or Champagne for the holidays! Moving on to the next gift wrapping idea which involves a few more steps but is so fun and something I do every year!
For this second idea, I filled brown paper bags with the almonds and stamped little Christmas trees on it using a stamp I made out of a potato. I stamped the trees all over the bags using regular craft black paint and they add such a cute touch, rustic vibes and all. A tip is to dab the stamp over a paper towel, not only do you want to remove the excess paint but pressing it onto a paper towel will give it the extra pattern from the paper bowl and add awesome texture!
To finish it off, I added a cinnamon stick which is a nice tie in to the flavour of the almonds along with some fresh greenery and a cute gift tag!
For both of these gifts ideas, you could also include the recipe for the candied nuts. On the mason jar, add a tag or place a sticker on the back of the mason jar lid. And for the paper bag, you could just write it directly on the back of the bag!
Hope you enjoyed this diy holiday gift idea. They would make a delicious treat and best of all both of these gift wrapping ideas are environmentally friendly, being either recyclable/reusable and nothing beats a homemade gift! Let me know what you think in the comments!
You can shop below for items used in this post. And as always, you can find me on Instagram @simplystyledinspo as well as on my food page @simplystyledfood
Be sure to tag me if you make these, would love to see!
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