We made candied almonds (using a recipe adapted from the ever-amazing Smitten Kitchen) and mixed them up with a few other ingredients to make a simple, delicious trail mix snack.

1/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
1 pound raw almonds (you could probably use roasted almonds; it would just change the flavor a little)

1. Preheat the oven to 300.
2. Mix together the sugars, salt and cinnamon in a bowl, making sure you don't leave any lumps.
3. Beat egg white and water until frothy, and use the mixture to coat the almonds. Then sprinkle the sugar-and-spice mix over the nuts and toss until evenly coated.
4. Spread the nuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet lined with foil or parchment paper. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Remove from the oven, separating nuts as the cool.


Now you have two options: you can wait until the nuts cool completely to eat them and make your trail mix (yeah, right...) or you can throw caution to the wind and go for it. Which, of course, is exactly what we did.


To make the trail mix, add about 1 cup white chocolate chips and 1 cup dried cranberries to the nuts and stir. If the nuts are still warm, the chocolate will probably melt a little and cause the mixture to form little clumps as the chocolate cools. Personally, I thought that was pretty delightful, but to each their own!


One of the best things about this recipe is that it is pretty elastic. You can make pretty much any nut into a candied nut using that recipe, and mix pretty much anything with it. How about walnuts, raisins and cinnamon chips? Or pecans, dried blueberries and dark chocolate? Mm. It all sounds delicious.

What's in your favorite trail mix?