[Sca-cooks] Need Help with a recipe...

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach me:
>I believe you strain the freshly made almond milk (removing most of 
>the solids in the process), boil it until it thickens, then drain 
>_that_ in the towel. See, if you drain the unstrained milk on a 
>towel, what you're throwing away is milk, and what you're saving is 
>more or less useless, fibrous pulp. It does have some use, but not 
>here. Whereas if you strain the freshly made milk, toss the pulp, 
>boil the milk until it thickens, and drain it on a towel (it may be 
>that, like some cream cheese recipes, you don't actually need to 
>hang it up in the towel, but just sort of spread it on the towel, 
>which absorbs excess moisture), then what you're saving is almond 
>cream / cheese, and what you're throwing away is a relatively clear 
>wheyish substance: basically water.
>
>I think what you end up with using the method you had originally 
>outlined leaves you with an eggshell filled with a sort of 
>second-grade marzipan (I don't mean to be rude: it's just that if 
>you have the almonds to make such a paste, you'd be throwing away a 
>lot of their virtue in the process, so why do it?). I think it is 
>the intention of the original cook / author to produce something 
>more like a thick custard (actually something like an early form of 
>frangipane cream).

Okay, since I happened to have a bag of ground almond meal on hand 
for a quick and dirty almond milk, I made some using about 1 1/4 cups 
ground almonds and about 4 cups of water. After blending and 
straining out most of the larger particles (which I could have done 
the "real" way by multiple infusions, but I decided I was in a slight 
rush), I ended up with about three cups of good, thick almond milk, 
about the consistency of heavy cream. (It was only 11PM; the night 
was young!)

I brought this to a boil in a stainless steel saucepan and stirred in 
pretty constantly with a wooden spoon, until the foam collapsed and, 
eventually, it resembled a thick bechamel sauce, and finally, left 
tracks from the spoon. Some residual grains of almond became more 
apparent in the stuff as it thickened, but some of it may also have 
been little curds. As it cooled it reached the consistency of a thick 
batter.

I put a kitchen towel (should be a smooth fabric, _not_ terrycloth) 
onto a large dinner plate, and simply spread out the "batter" onto 
the towel, more or less like a pancake on a griddle. Soon after, 
signs of liquid being absorbed and spreading across the towel became 
evident, and the liquid in the towel seems to be clear and non-oily. 
The cream pulls away pretty cleanly from the towel. It looks a lot 
like incipient queso blanco or panir...

It's still draining and cooling, but my suspicion is that when it's 
sweetened, the sugar will restore some of the smoothness and make it 
seem less grainy.

Adamantius