Candied Spiced Nuts

When Hubby and I lived in Germany, we fell in love with their traditional candied spiced nuts.  They are really amazing, but seemed impossible to make at home because of the specialized equipment they used: a special cooker shaped like a bowl with a spinning paddle that got hot enough to fully melt and cook the sugar.  In Germany these treats were relatively easy to find, inexpensive and super tasty.  I'd buy several bags of them every time the vendor made the rounds.  They are much harder to find in the States, usually only at special fairs or something similar, and when I can find them, they are pretty expensive.  But then I ran across a recipe to make them at home!  I was super excited and made some right away.  We enjoyed the results, but I've tweaked the recipe to fit our tastes better.  I increased the spices, because we love the flavors and they weren't quite coming out enough in the original recipe.  I also added a bit of maple syrup, to help the sugar melt and coat the nuts better.  Lastly, I used bowls instead of the plastic bags the original author used, because it is much easier to work with bowls, and it doesn't waste 2 bags for every batch!

Candied Spiced Nuts

4 cups of nuts, whatever you like.  We like cashews, so I use those.  A great place to get inexpensive nuts are indian food markets.

1 egg white.  You can grease a small container with a few drops of oil and put the yolk in it to use for something else later.
1 T water
1 T maple syrup, or if using white sugar substitute molasses instead

1 C sugar, preferably brown sugar or sucanat.
1 T cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 250.

Put nuts in a bowl large enough to stir everything together.  Measure the sugar and spices into a medium sized bowl and whisk until combined. 

Whisk egg white and water together until a little foamy, then add maple syrup or molasses.

Drizzle over the nuts and stir until coated.

Pour sugar mix over the nuts and stir until all the sugar is moistened and coats the nuts.

Pour the nuts onto a lined baking tray and spread them out.  Don't forget to scrape all that tasty sugar out of the bowl too!

Bake for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.  When stirring, make sure you scrape all the melted sugar off the bottom of the tray and mix it back into the nuts.  I've found it helpful to just kind of pile everything in the center of the tray, use the spatula to scrape up the sugar and dump it on top of the pile, then spread everything out again for further baking.

The nuts are done when the sugar is dry and they break apart easily.

Set on the counter to cool, then store in an airtight container.  These don't last all that long around here, but I imagine they would stay good for several months.

Yield: 4 cups