Mar 14, 2012

Candied carrots


It's nuts to be so crazy about carrots. Not just any carrots but baby candied carrots. The idea for these came from my longtime friend Ms Saltwater many years ago when she would have people over to her new apartment and cook beautiful gourmet meals. Here we would spend an afternoon lazing about and eating her wonderful food.


Since then I've roasted baby carrots using an infinite variety of spices but this one using maple syrup and cinnamon remains my favourite. Ms Saltwater uses honey which is equally as good and I vary it between honey and maple syrup depending on what's in the pantry. Needless to say, please don't use the maple flavoured fake syrup. If no other option, I think the better choice is to even use brown sugar.


There's really not too much to the recipe but the results are thoroughly mouthwatering. The majority of the work is done by the maple syrup and the oven to turn these into sweet little morsels that I can eat on their own. But they are also perfect with any sort of roasted meat or Morrocan inspired dish either vegetarian or with meat. We had these sweet little carrots as a side to a roasted garlic and lemon lamb and it was utterly delicious.




Candied carrots
Serves 2 as side dish


Ingredients:
1 bunch of baby Dutch carrots
2 Tbs maple syrup or honey
2 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbs olive oil
S&P

1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Cut off the green tops of the baby carrots leaving about 1cm for presentation. Peel the carrots. 3. Line a baking tray with baking paper
4. Place carrots, maple syrup, cinnamon, olive oil and S&P in the tray. Mix all ingredients until well combined.
5. Bake for about 40-45 minutes until carrots are dark golden brown.

13 comments:

marthameetslucy said...

Roasted carrots are the best. And I love maple syrup. I could eat it straight up. Which is basically what I did this morning when I made waffles.

JasmyneTea said...

YUM! I'm so making this tonight :) Great recipe!

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

I know I'd love these as I love roasting Dutch carrots but adding the maple makes it that much better! :)

Hester @ Alchemy in the Kitchen said...

Yum, one of my favourite sides. in fact I love these so much, I'd eat them as a main. Love the maple syrup in this.

James Brewer said...

Roasted carrots with cinnamon, I like the sound of that...!

Tenille @ My Family Table said...

Now this sounds much nicer than the sickly honeyed carrots that my Mum used to serve up (sorry Mum)!

yummychunklet said...

Ooh, these candied carrots look delicious!

Winnie said...

Yum...I'd be crazy for these carrots, too!

Anonymous said...

looks so delicious, never tried to caramelize the carrots, so will try as soon as possible.Thank you.

tania@mykitchenstories said...

They are lovely and sweet and juicy and cute aren"t they? I share your obssesion

Miss Kimbers said...

Mmm Another candied carrot recipe to try is brown sugar and balsamic vinegar:)

Anna @ The Shady Pine said...

I love the sound of the sugar and balsamic....I will definitely try the combination....thanks!

Eileen said...

It's not nuts at all to be crazy about carrots--they're delicious! :)