My roommate left a container of Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Almonds sitting on the counter not long ago. The good roommate that I am, I really *tried* not to eat a noticeable amount…but since she was away on vacation, I slowly decimated them. In my defense, they were unbelievably delicious! I decided I would make some of my own. I couldn’t find anything that was quite the same online but I did find a recipe that I think made an even better product–these with a hint of cinnamon to kick up the flavor. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: these will not last long if you leave them in plain sight.
Even if you just sugared the almonds and didn’t coat with the chocolate, they make a devastatingly delicious snack:
Chocolate Covered Almonds
Adapted loosely from this Chicago Sun-Times’ reader’s recipe for Chocolate Covered Almonds and this Serious Eats recipe, with chocolate tempering advice from David Lebovitz. I *highly* recommend reading DL’s post about tempering the chocolate because it makes a world of a difference–it’s not even worth making these if you’re not going to temper, in my opinion. That crunch is where it’s at.
1 1/2 cups whole almonds with skins on, toasted
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
A few pinches coarse-ground sea salt
1. In a medium saucepan, cook almonds, sugar, water, salt, and cinnamon over medium heat until the almonds have a dry, sand-like coating. Stir constantly to prevent caramelization.
2. Spread the almonds on a baking sheet and cool in the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. While the almonds are cooling, temper your chocolate. If you’re not sure how, see David Lebovitz’ instructions for tempering chocolate.
3. Once the almonds are cool, break off the huge chunks of sugar that have stuck to the almonds. Snack on them. Yum.
4. When the chocolate is at the right temperature, coat your almonds. You can EITHER dump the almonds in the chocolate, stir, and then individually separate; or you can dump the chocolate on the almonds, coat, and separate; OR you can do what I wish I had done, which is dip each almond in the bowl of chocolate on a fork and then place it on parchment paper on a different baking sheet. If you do the 2 easier/faster dumping techniques, you end up with giant clumps of almonds instead of individuals. Sprinkle the freshly-coated almonds with coarse sea salt.
5. Move covered + salted almonds to the refrigerator to set for about 20 minutes. In theory, they will not melt at room temperature (or in your hands) because of the tempering. Hurrah! Enjoy.
New Cook on the Block 
Have made these now twice. First time was a beautiful success. Second time was near-miserable failure. I ended up with what were essentially fudgey covered almonds which I’m now chilling in the fridge. I may just sprinkle them with a dusting of powdered sugar or cocoa and see if I can make it look like I meant to do that. We’ll see. I also added a tad of cayenne.
Just realized, I forgot to cool the almonds before dipping. Chocolate can be rather unforgiving at times.
Ah, Kevin, that definitely is the trick! Tempered chocolate is delicate and the almonds probably brought the temperature up by a few degrees–enough to disturb the tempering. Sorry to hear it didn’t work out. I hope they still taste great!