Almond Roca

Almond Roca bought from the store can sometimes be expensive, especially as they keep reducing how many you get in a pack! Why not learn to make your own, so you can always have some on hand?

For something similar, why not learn how to make some Old Fashioned Candied Pecans? Or some Rolo Pretzel Bites instead?

Almond Roca

Crunchy, nutty, and a little bit buttery, almond Roca is a great treat that isn’t seen very often these days outside of the state of Washington, which seems to treat them almost as their national candy.

While it has a bit of a reputation as candy for older people, it is actually super sweet and crunchy and makes for a perfect small snack to nibble on throughout the day.

This recipe should make it easy to make your very own Almond Roca at home – the only tricky part is getting the sugar syrup temperature and texture right to end up with the perfect toffee texture.   

Almond Roca Ingredients

Make sure you look at the recipe card at the very bottom for the exact amounts to know exactly what to buy for this recipe.

• Slivered almonds

• Butter

• Granulated sugar

• Boiling water

• Corn syrup

• Chocolate Chips

How To Make Almond Roca

• Spread the almonds out on a baking sheet and then bake in the oven for 10 minutes, or until golden brown

• Combine butter and sugar in a saucepan and cook over low heat

• Stir until the sugar is fully dissolved

• Stir in the water and corn syrup

• Boil over medium heat, without stirring, until it reaches 300 Fahrenheit, which is the hard crack stage

• Pour it over the almonds and then sprinkle the chocolate chips over top

• Spread with a knife to form a thin layer and, when cool, break it into pieces

How To Easily Get Your Sugar Mixture To The Hard Crack Stage

Reaching the proper hard crack stage is one of the biggest difficulties when making anything involving sugar syrup. Anything that you hope to have a beautifully crackly texture is seemingly cursed to fall apart or burn no matter what you try and do.

The real trick with getting a sugar syrup to a hard crack stage is to really carefully watch the temperature. This is best achieved by having a good quality instant-read thermometer.

Hard crack temperature is roughly around 300 Fahrenheit and is typically defined as the point when the solution reaches 99% sugar and only 1% water. If you can pull it off of the burner just as it reaches 300 Fahrenheit, you should be good.

One recurring problem, though, is the sugar syrup crystallizing and clumping up. The key to stopping this is to make sure not to have any of the syrup climbing up the edges of the pot you are boiling the syrup in.

This means no swirling or stirring the mixture whatsoever.

If you see some sugar crystals developing along the sides of the pot, you can wet it down with a little bit of water using a pastry brush.

How Does Corn Syrup Help This Recipe?

Corn syrup is one of those ingredients that finds its way into pretty much every sweet recipe in North America these days. Part of that is to do with the extensive corn subsidies in the USA, but another reason is because of how useful it is in making anything sweet for less money.

Corn syrup, or as it is sometimes known, high fructose corn syrup, is extremely high in fructose. Fructose is a simple sugar that bonds with the more commonly known glucose to form sucrose, better known as regular sugar. However, fructose on its own tastes a lot sweeter to us on our tongues than glucose. This means manufacturers can use less corn syrup than glucose syrup to achieve the same level of sweetness.

So while the corn syrup in this recipe helps balance the sweetness, the main thing it achieves is helping to fight against crystallization within the sugar solution.

As corn syrup is an invert due to its fructose content, it helps to stop sugar crystals from forming, which helps keep your sugar solution nice and crystal-free.

Looking for more delicious Sweet recipes? Try these out:

• Hazelnut Truffles

• Turtle Chocolate Bark

• Buttery Brown Sugar Grilled Peaches

Happy Cooking

Love,

Karlynn

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