Candied nuts

The oldest form of candied nut is the comfit. The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets describes comfits as an old-fashioned confection in which a spice or nut center is coated repeatedly with thin layers of sugar syrup, building up a hard shell. Sugared almonds are the classic example, along with spice-based sweets such as caraway comfits.

The word comes from the Latin conficere, "to put together," the same root as confection. It has nearly disappeared from modern English, and the confectionery industry now calls such sweets panned sweets, after the panning process used to make them.

Candied nuts today are used as snacks, as gifts and as a crunchy decoration on cakes, tarts and ice cream. Almonds are the traditional nut, and the idea of a sugar shell built up around a nut carries over to other kinds.