Kitchen Technique Adventures: Blanching Almonds

One of my State Fair baking entries this year is a Scottish Dundee cake, which has concentric rings of blanched almonds on the top as decoration.  Buying blanched almonds is possible, but kind of expensive.  So I decided that I would do my own. 

1. Buy raw almonds and put them in a heat proof bowl.
    
2. Boil a pot of water and pour over almonds
   
3. Let sit for 1 minute
   
4. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water
   
5. The skin on the nuts will start to wrinkle, like this
   
6. Rub almond between fingers and the skin will come right off!