Almond Roca

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This article was published 21/12/2010 (5760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Day 18 of the Free Press’s 21 Days of Holiday Cookies features Anna Kidd’s Almond Roca. We will be publishing one cookie recipe every day — Monday to Saturday — till Christmas.

WINNIPEG’S Anna Kidd is 90 now and rarely bakes, but at Christmas she likes to take out her old recipes and look them over, just for the memories they hold. She estimates that she’s made a thousand batches of Almond Roca over the years.

Anna Kidd’s Almond Roca

227 g (1 cup) butter (no substitutes — margarine will separate)
250 ml (1 cup) white sugar
45 ml (3 tbsp) water
15 ml (1 tbsp) corn syrup
100 g (1 cup) flaked toasted almonds
150 ml (1 cup) chocolate coating wafers (such as Merckens), or 225 g (8 oz) semi-sweet or bittersweet baking chocolate, melted in a double boiler over simmering water

Line a 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8 in) pan with tin foil. Melt butter over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add sugar, water and corn syrup and stir until sugar is dissolved. Clip a candy thermometer to the side of the pot and boil mixture, stirring constantly but gently in a figure-eight, until temperature reaches 150C (300F), or the hard crack stage. (This can take from 10-20 minutes. Mixture will be thickened and a deep caramel colour.) Remove from heat, stir in almonds, immediately pour mixture into prepared pan and spread to cover. Cool thoroughly, cover one side with melted chocolate. Let chocolate harden, then turn over, cover other side and let harden. Break into shards with a knife.

Tester’s notes: Candy can be fussy. I botched my first batch, probably by stirring too vigorously so that the sugar crystallized, but the second delicious batch made it all worthwhile. Don’t double the quantities, make sure you have a reliable candy thermometer, and don’t refrigerate or freeze, as this can spoil the chocolate. Anna says Almond Roca can keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks, but this strikes me as an entirely theoretical point: It’s disappearing double-quick at my house.

Alison Gillmor
Writer

Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto’s York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

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