Friday, May 3, 2013

Almond milk: first try


As promised, here are the results of my first attempt at making a nut milk. I pretty much followed Sarah's instructions. It is really easy: you will need a 1:4 nuts to water ratio. You can sweeten your nut milk by adding a date, raisins or honey. And when you serve it, a little cinammon and ice goes a long way.


One night before you start leave your nuts in a pan, soaking while they are completely covered in water. Then you will have to peel them. You should make sure you get non-pasteurized nuts, because the pasteurization process will fuse the skin to the nut making them very hard to peel. My advice here is just get peeled nuts. The boy and I spent quite a while peeling the nuts and it was not super fun. (Even if, yes, you can just push the skin away, it is kind of tedious and time-consuming).


Now for the fun part, put the nuts in the blender together with the water (250 gr nuts for 1 liter water) and mix until completely homogenous, you don't want any big chunks left. Next get your cheese-cloth ready (an old, washed t-shirt works as well) and pass the milk through it. Squeeze to get all the goodness out of it and voilà. I added a little bit of honey every time I drank some. It has a different taste for sure, you have to get used to it, but it's nice in its own way.


On a last note, don't throw away the nut-pulp. You can use it to make hummus or dry it to make flour, by baking the nut rests at 115ºC.  Have you ever made nut milk? Rice milk? Oatmeal milk? Do you have any tips or ideas?

14 comments:

  1. I haven't yet but I'm really wanting to try this, so thanks for the instructions. I don't drink almond milk (except in hot chocolate!), but I'm using it for things like cooking and baking as I try to cut down on animal fats. I love the idea of using the pulp to make hummus or almond flour.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That hummus was delicious. You should definitely try this, and you can do the same with other nuts (cashews, etc) or rice, oatmeal (though those are cereals).
      I have used coconut milk as substitute when baking and the results are amazing, it makes the cake moist and soft without being to overpowering in flavour. And coconut milk with blueberries is delicious in muffins / pound cake.

      Delete
  2. No sé por qué me imagino el sabor como agua de horchata, será por la primera foto, en todo caso se ve rico. Yo soy medio adicta a la leche de vaca, y la verdad no he probado otros tipos más que de soya. Apenas compré leche de arroz, a ver qué tal.
    Ah, y lo que preguntaste del aceite de aguacate el otro día, en México lo venden en Costco, por éso lo he probado. Gracias por el tip de las tienditas!, por aquí hay muchas así y no he entrado a chismear, seguro hay cosas ricas. Es difícil/caro comer bien, tengo la impresión, pero me imagino que será sólo al principio que hay tanto que aprender; ahora me fijo más en de dónde viene lo que como, éso sí.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sí, con la canela, es un poco similar al agua de horchata aunque mucho menos dulce (a menos que le agregues azúcar).
      A mí la leche de vaca también me fascina, me vuelve loca. La de soya no me gusta el sabor, lo encuentro muy fuerte, y prefiero evitar los productos de soya. La leche de arroz y de avena creo que son ricas (en mi casa hacían agua de avena y estaba deliciosa.
      Y tienes razón, yo creo que sabiendo de donde vienen los productos / cómo fueron producidos podemos tomar buenas decisiones, o al menos tratar de encontrar un equilibrio.

      Delete
  3. Para pelar las almendras facilmente tienes que echarles agua hirviendo y y dejarlas con el agua bien caliente 5 minutos. Luego cuelas el agua y la piel sale sola, apenas frotandola.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ohhhh gracias por el tip, la próxima vez lo intento así. Yo lo que hice fue dejarlas remojando toda la noche.

      Delete
  4. Aargh nu ben ik vergeten noten te kopen (heel typisch voor een warhoofd zoals ik). Hmm zo toch maar even langs de supermarkt :)

    xx

    liquoriceandpumps.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh oh... Je kan nog even naar de supermarkt :) Ik hoop dat je het noten melk lekker vindt.

      Delete
  5. Ooo this looks so good/interesting I may have to try it, I love almond milk. Thanks for sharing!
    xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yup, try it, it's very easy :) Almond and cereal milks are my favorite (I used to get one in France when we stayed there during a summer that was "mixed cereal" milk and it was delicious).

      Delete
  6. Replies
    1. You should totally try it :) I think I will make rice milk next (though rice is technically not a nut).

      Delete
  7. I'm really keen to make my own nut milk but don't own a very good blender (just a hand one) so not sure it will be happening any time too soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mmm... maybe you can try with your blender? Otherwise there are some blenders at good prices, I think ours was 35 EUR.

      Or you could save up for one of those food processors + blender. I don't have a food processor , and now that I have been really looking into vegan cooking / baking I see that lots and lots of recipes (from pestos, to date brownies, to hummus, dips, etc) use a few processor. I will try some with the blender but the surface is smaller, so I have read it is not so efficient (as blenders are optimized for liquids).

      Delete

I love your comments, let's talk .

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...