Hi Everyone,
I figured for being half way through the week we could use a pick me up, so I made you some Chocolate Covered Almonds!
Let me tell you the story behind these nuts! About 5 years ago, Trader Joe’s used to carry Chocolate Covered Almonds. My Husband loved them! Then one day as he was looking for his nuts (lol) he couldn’t find them. I searched everywhere for years for milk chocolate covered almonds. No such luck. For some reason they are hard to find. I can find dark chocolate covered almonds, but my Husband doesn’t like dark chocolate so the search was still on for milk chocolate covered almonds. I gave up and said screw it, I’ll make them myself and here I present to you today my Husbands nuts!
I couldn’t be more pleased with them. I have to admit I did I pretty darn good job in making them. They tasted the same, if not better than store-bought. The recipe is soooooooooo easy and only takes three ingredients, chocolate, cocoa powder and almonds. Since it was Trader Joe’s that he loved so much, I used my handy-dandy Trader Joe’s ingredients. By the way for chocolate, I truly found Trader Joe’s Pounder Bars melt like a dream in the microwave. I tried other chocolate and they never turn out in the microwave!
First thing I did was roast the almonds for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. You always know when your nuts are done when you can smell them, and boy do they smell good. Than I melted my chocolate in the microwave for 30 second intervals. It only took a minute. I added my roasted almonds to my chocolate, gave them a mix and I have this beautiful mess!!
Once the almonds were all coated, I took about a handful of almonds at a time and put them in the unsweetened cocoa powder. Gave them a shake and then picked them up with my hands and kind of bounced them back and forth from hand to hand to shake off the excess powder. Kind of like juggling. I would have shown you a picture at this point, but my hands were covered in delicious chocolate. But here is a picture of them drying on the baking sheet.
Once they air dry for about an hour or so, they are all set to eat and enjoy. I stored my almonds in a mason jar and a baggie for easy grabbing. You can store these for up to one month in a sealed container in the cupboard or my guess you can freeze them if they pass the one month mark, however I doubt they will last that long.
I was so glad when I came home from work, since I was a pretty good girl eating a fat salad for lunch and fruit for breakfast, I was craving sweet, so I grabbed a few almonds to get me through to dinner. Perfect little afternoon snack. I do prefer dark chocolate over milk, but I’m not to picky when it comes to chocolate!!
- 2 cups almonds, raw
- 4 oz. chocolate, milk or dark chopped
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and roast the almonds for 15 minutes, flipping half way through.
- In a microwave safe bowl, add chocolate and microwave in 30 second intervals, stirring in between until chocolate is melted, it took me one minute. Be careful not to burn the chocolate. You could also melt the chocolate in a double boiler, by adding a little water to a pot and adding a glass bowl to the top of the pot, make sure it doesn't touch the water. Melt chocolate, stirring constantly.
- Add almonds into melted chocolate and mix until all the almonds are coated in chocolate.
- In a medium bowl add cocoa powder; add a handful of the chocolate covered almonds at a time; mix until all of the almonds are covered in cocoa powder. Shake off the excess cocoa powder. I did this by picking up the almonds and bouncing it from my one hand to the other, then placing back onto parchment paper. Do the same to remaining almonds. Please note: do not cover all of the almonds with the cocoa powder at the same time, or you will end up with a big chocolate mess (Trust me!!).
- Let the almonds air dry. Store the chocolate covered almonds in a seal tight container at room temperature for up to a month.
I did make these nuts once before, about 3 years ago using Martha Stewart’s recipe and my gosh did she take something so simple and make if difficult. These took me 10 minutes to make and Martha’s took me hours. And you know what? I like these one’s so much better! I’m going to make these again but use dark chocolate! Those will be my nuts! 🙂
Have a great day!
Toodles,
Jennifer
