Candied hazelnuts are whole hazelnuts coated in a amber glass-like layer of crunchy, caramelized sugar. By suspending the sugar-dipped nuts on a skewer, the molten caramel drips and cools into dramatic caramel spikes that make for a dramatic and impressive decoration for any cake or confection.
Making homemade caramelized hazelnuts might be intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of the caramel part, they are well worth the effort and make the most elegant and gorgeous garnishes, with a textural crunch and a robust caramel flavor that pairs perfectly with the earthy, buttery hazelnuts.
Save this recipe for later!
Enter your email address below and we'll send this recipe straight to your inbox for safekeeping, plus subscribe to our newsletter for new recipes and updates!
I’m still a little aghast that I’ve never made candied hazelnuts before.
The spikes make for a truly striking decorations (so spiky!) I used them on my flourless hazelnut cake, but I also think they’d be lovely on my mirror-glazed nutella brownie mousse cake too (really, anything with even the tiniest hint of hazelnut or Nutella flavor is fair game for these gorgeous garnishes).
I’ve written this recipe to make both hazelnut clusters (from coarsely chopped nuts) and a dozen or so hazelnut spikes from the same batch of caramel (since I wanted to use both kinds to decorate my cake). This involves a bit of finagling to make the timing work.
You’ll want to pour about half the hot liquid caramel over the chopped nuts (stir to coat then spread out to cool); meanwhile the other half of the caramel stays in the pan until it has thickened slightly to the point where you can dip the skewered hazelnuts and make spikes.
While it would definitely be easier to add the chopped nuts to the caramel in the pan, that cools down the caramel too much too fast to be able to make spikes out of it after. And vice versa, if you start with spikes first, the caramel will be much too thick to stir in the nuts after.
If you’re a beginner and don’t have much experience with caramel, I might suggest starting with just hazelnut clusters first. Get the hang of the caramelization process, knowing when to take the caramel off of the heat and so forth. Clusters alone are much easier, just dump the nuts into the saucepan with the hot caramel, give it a stir until everything is evenly coated, then pour it all out onto a parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet!
Once you’re confident in your caramel, then you’re ready to spike! To make spikes, the caramel needs to thicken up and cool ever so slightly, until it is the consistency of room temperature honey, at which point it is perfect for dipping and letting the drips form perfectly sharp spikes. You only have a few minutes of the caramel at the perfect consistency, so work fairly quickly. You should be able to get maybe 8 or 10 spikes out of it before the caramel gets too thick.
The Setup.
For the setup, you want to use the edge of a countertop where the candied nuts can hang with plenty of height to allow for the drips.
On the surface, use a cookie sheet or large cutting board as a weight to hold the skewers in place (slide the ends of the skewers underneath the cutting board to hold them in place).
You also need to protect your floors and cabinets as the sugar will go everywhere. I put a piece of parchment on the floor and also shut a piece in the cabinet door to protect the fronts of the cabinets.
Pro tip: don’t try to make candied hazelnuts when it’s raining (or otherwise super humid outside) as the fine strands of caramel will melt and bead and get unpleasantly sticky.
Poke a long wooden skewer into the sides of the nuts. It doesn’t need to be deep, just enough so the nut stays on the skewer but does not split in half (also, don’t stick the skewer right in the seam or it will definitely split).
The rest of the nuts can be left whole, halved (my preference), or very coarsely chopped. These will be used to make the clusters.
The Timing.
The caramel will take 10 to 20 minutes, but do not let it out of your sight, as it will burn before you can say “oh sh*t”.
Take the caramel off when it is light amber in color (think wheat/amber beer). It will continue to darken a bit more as it cools.
Give the pan a cold shock by dipping the bottom into an ice bath (this will prevent the caramel from continuing to cook too much).
If you’re making both clusters and spikes, pour half of the hot liquid caramel over the halved or chopped hazelnuts in a bowl, stir a few times to coat and then spread onto a parchment or silicone lined baking sheet. If you’re only doing clusters, then you can dump all the nuts into the saucepan with the liquid caramel, give it a quick stir to coat, then spoon or pour out onto the baking sheet.
But if you are making spikes too, let the remaining caramel cool slightly until it’s thick enough to give you a nice drip (if it is too thin the drip will fall too quickly and you won’t get much of a spike).
Dip one skewered nut into the caramel, coating it completely, then place it under the weighted cutting board or cookie sheet so the nut is hanging over the edge with the drip pointing down. Leave a couple inches between each dipped nut otherwise they might stick to each other.
Repeat with the remaining skewered nuts; you can probably do about 10-12 of these before your caramel cools too much (it’ll be so thick and gloppy it won’t fully coat the nut and you’ll have more of a blobby thing than a drip).
If you need to make more than a dozen, either have a second person helping you so it goes more quickly (and be sure you have plenty of counterspace with overhang), or make multiple batches.
As the spikes cool, snip off the sugar strands to make them the height you want.
Let the spikes fully set until they are no longer sticky before removing from the skewers (or leave them on the skewers until you are ready to use them).
Take it one step further and make hazelnut praline by blending up the cooled caramelized nuts until you get a smooth paste (like hazelnut butter, basically, but sweetened with caramel for a deliciously toasty flavor). 2 cups of coarsely chopped candied hazelnuts will yield about 1 cup of praline paste.
This recipe makes enough liquid caramel for 1 cup of chopped hazelnut clusters AND 10-12 spikes (some will be leftover).
If you’re just doing clusters (or making praline), you can use 2 cups worth of chopped hazelnuts, or halve the caramel with 1 cup of nuts for a smaller batch.
If you’re just doing spikes, you can also halve the recipe, just be sure you have enough caramel to be able to fully submerge the skewered nuts (I like having a larger quantity of caramel so it’s easier to fully dip). You’ll likely have quite a bit of caramel leftover as it thickens too quickly to use every bit of it.
Homemade Caramelized Candied Hazelnuts
Ingredients
- 2 cups / 400 g granulated sugar
- 6 tablespoons / 90 g water
- 2 tablespoons / 30 g corn syrup or glucose syrup
- 1 cup / 130 g hazelnuts*, lightly toasted and peeled and halved or very coarsely chopped
- 10-12 whole hazelnuts, lightly toasted and peeled (for making hazelnut spikes)
Instructions
- If your hazelnuts are unpeeled, lightly toast hazelnuts for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees F, then rub between layers of paper towels or a clean cotton dish towel—the skins should flake right off. Keep whole (for spikes) or halve/coarsely chop (for clusters).
- You'll also want to prepare a baking sheet lined with parchment (not waxed) paper or a silicone baking mat for the candied hazelnut clusters to cool.
- Also fill a heat-proof pan (like a 13×9 baking dish for example) with ice water. It should be big enough to be able to dip the bottom of your saucepan.
- If making hazelnut spikes, prepare your workspace. Set a cookie sheet or large, heavy cutting board on the edge of the counter. Line the floors with parchment paper or newspaper; you may also want to tape a strip to the cabinets to protect the cabinet faces from molten sugar.
- Gently poke a long, thin skewer into the sides of 10-12 whole hazelnuts. It does not need to go deep, just enough to hold the nut on the skewer. Poke in the side of the nut, not the seam, to prevent splitting.
- To make clusters, coarsely chop about 1 cup of nuts and place in a heat-proof metal or glass bowl.
- Combine sugar, water, and corn syrup in a heavy-bottomed saucepan set over medium heat. Stir gently until sugar is fully dissolved and just starts to simmer.
- Cover saucepan and let simmer for 2-3 minutes (the condensation will help wash down the sides of any stray sugar crystals). If necessary, if there are still crystals on the sides of the pan, brush down with a pastry brush dipped in water.
- Once the sugar mixture starts boiling, do not stir it. You can swirl the pan occasionally if necessary, but stirring could trigger crystallization which we do not want.
- Watch the sugar very closely, especially once it starts to turn pale yellow, as it'll go from perfect to burnt in what seems like seconds.
- Once the caramel darkens to a light amber brown (think wheat beer or amber ale; if you are just making clusters you can take it a little bit darker), remove from heat and dip the bottom of the saucepan in a dish of ice water to "shock" the pan and prevent the caramel from cooking further.
- If making both clusters and spikes, pour half of the hot liquid caramel over the chopped nuts in a mixing bowl. (If you are just making clusters, you can pour the nuts right into the saucepan.) Quickly stir once or twice until coated, then dump the whole bowl out onto the parchment or silicone-lined baking sheet, spreading them out into a single layer and separating the clusters as much as possible (they are very sticky at this point so just do your best).
- By this point the remaining caramel in the saucepan should be thickened and slightly cooled. To make the hazelnut spikes, dip the whole hazelnuts on skewers into the caramel, then slide the end of the skewer under the baking sheet or cutting board on the countertop to hold it in place; the sugar-coated nut should hang over the edge and the caramel will drip off, forming a spike as it cools. Trim any too-long pieces with scissors as needed.
- Repeat with remaining skewered nuts, working as quickly as possible, until caramel is too thick to dip any longer (at this point, fill the pan with very hot water so the caramel can start to dissolve, much easier than trying to clean it up after it's completely solidified!)
- Once caramel is set, break apart clusters and/or coarsely chop to use as a garnish. Set spikes can be used to decorate, I don't recommend making these too far ahead of time as they tend to soften/get sticky the longer they sit (especially in humid climates).
Notes
- If you are just making clusters and no spikes, you can use 2 cups of chopped nuts or halve the caramel recipe; otherwise there will be a bit too much caramel-to-hazelnut proportionally.
- Conversely, if you are just wanting to make spikes, you can halve the caramel which will be enough to dip 10-12 nuts. If you want more than that, I recommend making two separate batches of caramel as it cools too quickly to dip many more than that at once.
