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Candied Hazelnuts are a great, simple way to make any dessert look fancy.
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Back in 2011 I posted about my birthday dessert the Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake.
And, it was garnished with these beautiful candied hazelnuts.
In fact, the candied hazelnuts were the only part that I thought I’d ever try to make again. They were beautiful, and not really all hard to make at all.
The cake itself, though delicious, was a nightmare to make.
The decorative hazelnuts are dipped in caramelized sugar and hung so the sugar streams and hardens into beautiful skewers of nutty goodness.
If you don’t have skewers, you can use toothpicks as well.
How to make Candied Hazelnuts
Gather up your hazelnuts. The pretty ones. The full round ones.
Clean off any extra skin they may have on them by rubbing the hazelnuts with a clean cotton towel.
After placing the cleaned hazelnuts onto the skewers, you’ll want to create the space for the candy to harden.
You can stand the skewered hazelnuts up in a drinking glass at this point to gather them all up.
Do this by placing a wooden cutting board near the edge of the counter.
I used my marble slab for this step.
You can just see the marble slab above the countertop with the skewers sandwiched between in this photo.
Place a baking sheet on the floor underneath the set up, and cover the baking sheet with waxed paper.
This baking sheet that you place on the floor is to catch the candy drippings. Trust me on this, you don’t want to skip this step.
Hardened candy on the floor will not be fun to clean up.
The photo below is of my baking sheet with the drips on it.
Cook the sugar until you get that pretty golden color.
Then dip the skewered hazelnuts.
Allow the candy to hang off and drip down to the baking sheet on the floor. That’s really all there is to these pretty hazelnut garnishes.
Then the only thing you have to decide is what to use these on!
Kitchen essentials you may need for this recipe
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Candied Hazelnuts Recipe
Candied Hazelnuts
Ingredients
- 9 hazelnuts toasted and peeled
- 1 cup sugar
- ¼ cup water
- wooden skewers
Instructions
- Thread each hazelnut onto the tip of a long wooden skewer or toothpick, and set aside.
- Place a cutting board or marble board along the edge of a countertop, and set a baking sheet covered with waxed paper on floor next to edge of that countertop to catch the drips of candy from the hazelnuts.
- Cook the sugar and water in a heavy bottomed medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar dissolves.
- Continue to cook the sugar, without stirring, until the syrup comes to a boil. Wash the sides of the pan down with a wet brush to prevent crystals from forming. Let the syrup boil until it turns light brown in color, about 5 minutes; remove from heat. Let the syrup sit until slightly cooled, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Dip one of the skewered hazelnuts into the cooled syrup, coating the hazelnut completely, and letting the excess syrup drip back into the pan. When the dripping syrup becomes a thin string, secure end of the skewer under the cutting board, let the caramelized sugar string drip over edge and onto the baking sheet that’s on the floor.
- Repeat with remaining hazelnuts. Let the candied hazelnuts stand until the syrup has hardened, at least 5 minutes. Carefully remove skewers from under the cutting board, and garnish your dessert with the skewered candied hazelnuts.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations, and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary based on brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes, and more.
Debra C.
I was reading some of your recipes today and just had to swing back to this one. What a fun way to turn an ordinary cake into something spectacular! I will need to balance mine off the counter though rather than to the floor, too many four legged friends that would have a hay-day with that sugar drizzle.
Sandra Shaffer
Wow, Deb, these are gorgeous! Such a pretty way to decorate a cake, but also love the idea of munching on a couple right off the stick! Hazelnuts are pretty soft, yes? Which I suppose makes it easy to poke and dip into the sugar coating. Love these candied hazelnuts!
Angela
Oh now this is great!! I can definitely think of several fabulous ways to enjoy these hazelnuts besides just popping them all day haha! Saving this one!
Madi
What a pretty addition to a cake! I can’t wait to give these a go!
Jennifer A Stewart
These look so fun! I think they will make a great addition to a dessert board!! And of course, cupcakes!
Christine Togwell
Made these. They looked and tasted really great, but controlling the sugar strands was trickier than I had anticipated.
Jennie
Hi Deb! I’m looking for festive decor for a cake I’m making for thanksgiving and something like this would be beautiful. Only thing is that a relative is very allergic to hazelnuts, so was thinking of subbing cranberries… Do you think that would work? Alternatively, I was going to try chestnuts but they’re not always the most attractive/evenly formed when peeled 🙂
Debi
Jennie, Actually I think that would work well. The cranberry isn’t in the hot syrup for too long, so it shouldn’t really cook too much, which could make it pop, burst, or shrink. Chestnuts would work as well. Have you seen the already peeled ones in jars that they have at the stores sometimes? That would be a time saver if you go with that route. I bet either way will be really pretty & I’d love to see pictures if you make them.