We have started making our own Almond milk. It is really simple to do and tastes delicious! It is also great because we get to control how much sugar goes into making it...
I have adapted the process as inspired by the recipe in this book: My Darling Lemon Thyme: Recipes from My Real Food Kitchen: Vegetarian, gluten-free meals, small bites,
which I received as a Christmas present last year.To start I soak a large cupful of almonds over night in cold water in the fridge.
In the morning I rinse them and then put them in a jug with 1 cup of cold water and blitz them to form a gritty paste. I only have a stick blender so mine is still a bit chunky... so no need to stress if yours is too.
Then I add 1Tblsp of rice malt syrup (you could use honey, maple syrup or even raw sugar if you don't have this...I had no idea what this was until I tried it...it tastes a bit like golden syrup but not as strongly flavoured) and another 2 and a bit cups of water and blitz it altogether again.
The next step is to strain the bits of almond out of the milk. As suggested in the book I use a piece of muslin cloth do this (I found some for cheap at Spotlight - I think it was about $6/m). I give it a good squeeze and wring out all the liquid.
You have to be a bit careful doing this though as there has been a few times when I have had almond paste splattered all over me, the bench and the floor in an over zealous attempt at 'milking'!
The result is a bowlful of creamy almond milk and a good cupful of ground almond meal! I add a bit more water to make it up to about 1L. But if you want it really creamy you don't need to do this.
The milk gets stored in the fridge in a jug and used for our morning cereal and baking - (but that all depends on if we have milkshakes - then it can be gone in 30 seconds flat)!
The left over ground almond I keep aside in a bowl in the fridge and use it to make home baking for the rest of the week.
Today I made chocolate chip cookies - the ones in the photo - I simply replaced the wheat flour quantity of 750g (from a recipe I had torn out from a magazine yonks ago but never got around to making yet) with about 500g of the almond meal (what I had left over sitting in the fridge) and 250g of brown rice flour.
The ground almond is quite moist so I used a fork to mix the two 'flours' together to get rid of any lumps.
The cookies took a bit longer to cook than usual... (I'm guessing because they had a little extra moisture in them from the almonds) but they have a great texture and a chewy bite which makes me want to go back for seconds and thirds!
The great news is I don't think we have bought any milk, bread, or treats from the supermarket in the last 3 weeks because our pantry and freezer are overflowing with homemade bread, cakes and now biscuits.
I have calculated that 1 cup of almonds is about $4 to buy (depending on specials and bulk availability) but from that 1 cup I can get about 1L of almond milk and at least one baked cake or loaf.
Compared to $4 for 1L of store bought almond milk and at least that again for bread or a packet of biscuits we are already noticing our shopping bill reduce!
I think we are addicted to almonds!
P.S. to make the milkshakes either use a chocolate syrup or milo or drinking chocolate powder with a scoop of icecream (if you so desire) and whiz it up with your stick blender! YUM
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