And I love trail mix. All the textures, the salty-and-sweet aspect. I can never stop at a handful.
Marrying candied nuts with trail mix was one of the best, and most dangerous, kitchen decisions I’ve had lately. Can you say addiciting. Whoa. But it makes great gifts and people love it. I used a combo of pecans, walnuts, and almonds. I love using pecans when making candied nuts because the cinnamon-and-sugar coating really seeps into all the nookies and crannies and adheres beautifully. My 7-year old hand model promptly picked out most of chocolate chips. I’ve taught her well.
My family loves almonds and you can’t go wrong with buttery cashews. Use your favorite nuts. I use unsalted, raw nuts because they bake at the same rate and the salt level is uniform, but if you have lightly salted, roasted peanuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts, or others, I’m sure they’ll be fine.
I usually have a half dozen different bags of nuts open (salted, unsalted, raw, roasted) and this is a great pantry cleanout recipe. I’m BFF’s with the Trader Joe’s nuts and dried fruit aisle. After baking I added dried cranberries, dried cherries, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and white chocolate chips. If you’re not fond of certain dried fruits or don’t like white chocolate, omit them and use what you prefer.
The trail mix is salty and sweet, packed with rich cinnamon sugar flavor, and there’s so many textures from crunchy to chewy in every bite. The tartness of the dried fruit is offset by the sweet white chocolate. So good. The heavenly scent while it bakes just helps contribute to how irresistible this stuff is. It’s going to be your new favorite fall snack. It would make great gifts if you can part with any.
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