Cinnamon sugar roasted nuts - Gluten Free

It has taken me a while to post about these, but these gluten free Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Nutes are definitely worth the wait. 

You know the old "real estate trick" of having a Roast Lamb (if you're in Australia) or a batch of cookies (in the US) in the oven when you're having an open house, as it makes the house smell homely and inviting...well..

I think these cinnamon roasted nuts can replace both of those options and could be the global real estate fairy dust.

I feel like these should be made once a week, just to "freshen up" the smell of your house, they smell that good. There is just something special about heated up cinnamon and sugar. In Australia there is an amazing chain store donut shop called Donut King, and they do the greatest ever hot cinnamon donuts. They are made to order and you get to watch your dough ring drop into the vat of oil and bubble along and land on the tray of cinnamon sugar, where they are gloriously coated and placed in your paper bag, ready to burn your hands and tongue, but its all worth it, they taste like a ring of heaven. 

Anyway, I digress.... back to the nuts! 

So these nuts take me back to many places in Australia. One is Donut King with Bridge, and the other is to a small street vendor in the middle of Melbourne city, who, in the middle of the cold winters, would be selling these roasted nuts on the roadside and they would just smell like they were going to warm you up immediately. 

So, I think you get the gist, they smell good. 

But they taste good too! Nothing that evokes childhood memories just by the smell is going to taste awful, of that I can be sure. They taste delicious. 

They are crunchy, sweet, salty, wholesome, indulgent and warming. 

I adapted the recipe from the Healthy Food For Living, as I found this recipe to be far less sugary than others and it appealed to me to use the eggwhites to coat the nuts prior to coating them in the cinnamon sugar, not unlike my donuts....

Ingredients

1.5 cups of mixed nuts of your choosing, but chop them to be the same size so that they cook evenly

2 T brown sugar

2 T granulated sugar (mine was white)

1 egg white

1 t ground cinnamon (but this is quite heavy handed, perhaps go for 1/2 a teaspoon if you're not cinnamon obsessed!)

A dash of salt

Method

1. Combine cinnamon, sugars and salt in a bowl and mix well. 

2. Whisk the egg white until white and stiff, which should only take about a minute.

 3. Chop your nuts evenly and add them to the egg white.

4. Add the cinnamon sugar mix to the nuts and toss well until well covered and until there is no sugar left in the bowl, it should all be coating the nuts.

5. On a sheet of parchment paper, spread the nuts evenly in one layer and bake for 20 minutes on a slow oven (120C/250F).

I then divided these nuts into small bags as part of the favour bags from Baby M's first birthday party. I also gifted these to neighbours and foodie penpals as I wanted to share the warmth and love of these gloriously roasted nuts. 

I have been given a variety of fun spices over the past few months and think they would make fabulous nut-seasoning, and a fun way of making nuts a little more interesting.