Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Handmade Christmas: Crockpot Cinnamon Almonds - FAIL



Pinterest: we have a failure. Signal the "womp, womp, womp" sound effect.

I'm a sucker for recipes that use slow cookers, because they always imply that the machine is doing the work. So when I saw a recipe for Crock Pot Cinnamon Almonds, I was game to give it a go.


And the recipe was dead simple:

1 ½  cups sugar
1 ½ cups brown sugar
3 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1 egg white
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups almonds
¼ cup water

Just whip the eggs, assemble the ingredients and toss them in a crock pot.

My first point of alarm came when I read 3 Tablespoons for the cinnamon. Did they mean 3 teaspoons? It sure smelled strong!

Nevertheless, I followed the instructions, whipping the whites, then adding the sugars and seasoning. Then dumped the melange into my crockpot. Here's where things got tricky. The instructions say:
Cook (with the lid on) 3-4 hours stirring every 20 minutes. In the last hour, add the 1/4 C. of water and stir well. Stir really well, especially as it gets later in the cooking process.
What? I have to stir it every 20 minutes? I was planning to go to bed and let the mess simmer all night.

Lesson learned: read the entire recipe, all the way through. Every word.

So I stayed up quite late that night.

After two hours in the slow cooker, they looked like this.

So pretty!
Exceedingly goopy, not at all like what was promised. But I set them out to "dry" for a while.

This was as close as it got.
They did not improve, so I put them back in the crock pot and set the dial to "warm," and I went to bed. I came down in the morning to this.

The opposite of "pretty."
Epic fail. But did I give up?

No, I did not. I tasted a couple and they were okay, so I spread those marble-flicking almonds over the reusable pan liner I had just bought. (See my postscript about the pan liner below. Hint: it rocks!)

Or, at least, I tried.


I finally got them all onto the pan. I waited until they had cooled to room temperature, then tried to break the mass into chunks before it got too hard to handle.

This is what happened:

It bends, but it won't break!

I tried to use my hands to break it into chunks, but it was so rubbery, it would not break. It tasted okay, but not great. I put the entire glob into a pretty bowl and set it out for the kids to nosh on.


P.S.The reusable pan liner was a godsend. I can't imagine how the syrup would have adhered to waxed paper or even parchment.


The product is made by cookina, and it is ah-mazing. It seems to be some kind of fibre that is coated with silicone or something. The package I bought had enough to line both of my jelly-roll pans (which I use as cookie sheets), with slight gaps at top and bottom. I could have custom-fit it, but then I would only have had one pan liner. I found it for $9.99 at Metro.

To read more in this series, visit my Handmade Christmas page
1 cup of Sugar
1 cup of Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons of Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon of Salt
1 egg White
2 teaspoons of Vanilla
3 cups of Almonds
1/8 cup of water
Read more at http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2013/09/slow-cooker-cinnamon-almonds.html#FOeWjR2kxz6wv2Pi.99
1 cup of Sugar
1 cup of Brown Sugar
3 Tablespoons of Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon of Salt
1 egg White
2 teaspoons of Vanilla
3 cups of Almonds
1/8 cup of water
Read more at http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2013/09/slow-cooker-cinnamon-almonds.html#FOeWjR2kxz6wv2Pi.99

4 comments:

  1. I'm buying the reusable sheet. I go through too much parchment paper.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Six Sisters Stuff is usually pretty good! But if you read the comments there are quite a few people who seemed to have results like yours.

    Did you coat the almonds with egg, then take them out and coat them in the sugars? Or mix it all together? It appears that the directions on Six Sisters differ slightly than the directions she links to on KWWL (which seems to be the ones you followed according the excerpt you quoted). The directions on KWWL are quite confusing, but from what I understand from Six Sisters the almonds should have been coated with egg, then removed from the egg and coated with sugar. Still, sounds like a lot more work than you would bargain for with a crockpot recipe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diane, you nailed it. I skipped an important step. The other recipe I use has you combine the eggs and sugar before coating the nuts, and it works without fail. Next time I should read the comments before I proceed. Also, I should read the whole recipe more closely.

      Delete

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