Abstract: A cooked snack food or cooked edible core material, such as roasted nuts, or baked snack chips, while still hot from the cooking step, is tumbled and sprayed with an aqueous solution of a water-soluble, film-forming coating component, such as a maltodextrin. The tumbling and spraying is performed immediately after cooking so that latent heat from the cooked edible core material, reduces the moisture content of the applied aqueous solution to form a dry, thin film coating of the coating component on the edible core material. The need for a separate, subsequent drying step or forced air drying equipment to reduce the moisture content is eliminated by evaporative cooling of the hot cooked snacks and flashing of the applied aqueous coating solution. The dry, coated cooked snack may be cooled to obtain a snack food having a thin, uniform coating which enhances appearance, texture, taste and shelf life.