These are inspired by the little candies I cherry pick from the box of See’s that finds its way into our home every Christmas. You can use solely milk chocolate or solely dark for this recipe, but I think half and half dark is the best combination. Trader Joe’s has a big block of semi-sweet for five bucks – can’t beat that – and for a shortcut, they have wonderful semi-sweet chocolate chips. Be sure to use salted, roasted almonds because salt brings out the taste of chocolate beautifully.
These make wonderful holiday gifts for your neighbors and are the perfect ending to a spicy meal…or as a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Actually, I don’t think there’s a bad time to eat chocolate. This has a bit of milk and soy in it, but I splurge every once in a while and suffer a stuffy head. This is the perfect treat to make with children – it’s a little messy and the end result is an organically shaped blob of chocolate and nuts. Plus, they get to lick their fingers afterwards.
Active time: 15 minutes
Total time: 1-2 hours
Yield: 16 -18 candies
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips* (Trader Joe’s are GFCF) or from a block, sliced into small shreds on a diagonal with a large, sharp knife
about 1/2 c. salted, roasted whole almonds (roughly 64 nuts)
*You can absolutely use chocolate chips, but they have stabilizers in them (to form the chips) and the chocolate won’t be as smooth and silky.
- Lay a strip of wax paper atop a flat jelly roll pan (cookie sheet).
- To melt the chocolate, you can use a double boiler, but I use a heavy bottomed pot and a rubber scraper and watch it like a hawk, stirring constantly on the lowest possible heat. When there are no lumps, I remove from heat and immediately add all almonds to the chocolate mixture, mixing to make sure the nuts are completely covered.
- With a large spoon, pull the nuts out with the spoon (about 4 at a time) and drop onto wax paper. Don’t drain all the chocolate away from the nuts; leave a little pool for the nuts to settle in.
- After you use up all the chocolate and lick the spoon, place the cookie sheet in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
These can be stored in an airight container in fridge to keep them fresh.