Our recipe for almond roca is from Bruce's mother, Ann Bratney. Her mother learned the recipe by watching it being made through a candy shop window and adapted the recipe from that. Can you imagine?! Ann grew up with her mom making this recipe every Christmas. My husband learned by watching his mom do the same thing. Now, Bruce makes it every year and we give it out for gifts, a much anticipated gift by all. There is a particular method on how it is made and Bruce insists you must follow this certain technique for it to turn out perfect. So, I will post the recipe, but according to Bruce, if you don't follow his specific technique, it won't turn out which is why, when someone wants the recipe, we must personally show them how to make it! But here it is…
1 cup water
4 cups sugar
2 pounds salted butter
1 pound almonds (3-1/4 cups) + extra to chop and sprinkle on top at the end
1 7 or 8 oz. milk chocolate Hershey bar
1. Mix water and sugar in a large pot, bring to a slow, rolling boil. Throughout the entire cooking process, keep mixture at a slow, rolling boil, continuously stirring.
2. Add butter to sugar/water mixture, 1/4 pound (1 stick) at a time so sugar/water continues to boil at a slow, rolling boil. Keep syrup boiling all the time and keep stirring until all the butter is added.
Lining up the butter to start stirring it into the sugar/water.
3. Add the almonds, handful at a time, maintaining a slow, rolling boil. Keep slow boiling and stirring until the nuts become crisp and batter turns a light brown color to the hard crack stage or 300 degrees.
(Up to this point, this process takes 75 to 90 minutes)
4. Pour batter onto a slab and spread to about 1/2 inch thick. (we use two round pizza pans)
5. Spread a large 7 oz. milk chocolate Hershey chocolate bar on top or enough to cover the top. Spread evenly as the chocolate melts. Sprinkle the top with chopped almonds.
6. When cool, break up into pieces (but not too small) with a large knife.
Allow 3 hours total from start to finish.
Yum! We haven't made ours yet. It's funny how everyone makes it a little different. My parents put corn syrup in it. I think our recipe is like yours, but we must be making half batches, and it takes about an hour. I might try doubling it this year. Is it too heavy to pour out? Do you need two people? Looks delicious :)
ReplyDeleteOf course your parents use corn syrup! They're from Iowa!!
ReplyDeleteIt's not too heavy to pour out but sometimes Bruce asks me to spread it faster onto the pans as he pours it. Otherwise, I never touch his precious creation! And sometimes we double this recipe and have two pans going at once. We give a lot away as gifts.
I thought this recipe was as secret as the coca cola recipe. There was some fear that if the boat went down during a family cruise that the recipe/technique would be lost. Thank you for sharing this on the web.
ReplyDeleteWe just made our 6th batch of almond roca tonight (while talking to Nick & Sachiyo in Japan on Skype). I see no need to keep the recipe "secret" like some people do with family recipes. Good recipes have good stories to go with them, thus, they make for great sharing opportunities that I, for one, am happy to provide!
ReplyDeletewonderful site - great recipes. I think you need to go you tube with this.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a long Youtube, like an hour and a half! We have thought about it…we could edit it, cut ahead, etc.
ReplyDelete