Almond Clusters

21-Dec-2007

The holiday baking frenzy continues although it is winding down. My family comes to town tomorrow and much of the baking will be packaged up in gift baskets for them. But I did squeeze a few more things in today.

These chocolate covered almonds are always a favorite. The original recipe called for milk chocolate and salted peanuts, which was a great combination. But over time I’ve moved to using dark chocolate and almonds instead. This batch is actually semi-sweet chocolate.

The recipe is super easy – 2 bags of chocolate chips and 2 cups (or a little more) of nuts. Melt the chocolate, add the nuts, drop by the spoonful onto waxed paper covered sheets. Let cool and harden and then eat!

The only thing I don’t like about the recipe is that the chocolate tends to bloom – some times more than others. If you don’t know what bloom is it’s the light, grayish streaks chocolate sometimes gets. It’s just an aesthetic thing – it won’t hurt you – but I don’t really like it. I’m going to make another batch of these next week when I will have a little more time and I’m going to try tempering the chocolate – something I haven’t done before. That should take care of the bloom.