[Sca-cooks] Question about almond flour

Stefan li Rous StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
Sat Nov 13 22:41:10 PST 2010


> I am working on a recipe that calls for 'pounded' almonds. The first time
> we
> made this we used almond flour for convenience reasons. Now I am making it
> again for my mom but do not have almond flour and she says if i try to
> grind
> whole almonds it will make butter not flour. Any suggestions or advice?
> Thanks,
> -Eleida

To which Kiri replied:
<<< We've ground both raw almonds and blanched almonds in our food processor and
wound up with ground almonds...not sure how you'd get almond butter....>>>

Yes, to turn almond flour or crushed almonds into almond butter, you need to add a liquid of some type.

In this Florilegium file
alnd-mlk-chs-msg (25K) 10/ 2/10 Period almond milk cheese. Cheese and butter-like compounds make from almond milk.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/alnd-mlk-chs-msg.html

Eduardo quotes Epulario 1598 saying:
<<< 197) To counterfeit Butter.
  Take a pound of blanched Almonds as aforesaid, & stamp them and  
straine them with halfe a glasse of Rosewater, and to make them curdy  
put a little flower or half a glasse of Pike or Tench broth, with  
four ounces of Sugar and a little Saffron to make it yellow,  
straining it thick, then make it in fashion of a dish of butter, and  
set it all night to thicken against morning in a cold place. >>>

There are a number of similarities between making almond butter, almond milk, almond cheese etc. Here are some other Florilegium files which might also be useful. My apologies if I've missed some comments. I'm way behind on my digests and am skipping into the middle of this particular thread.

almond-milk-msg (115K) 4/13/10 Making almond milk. Recipes. Deskinning nuts
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/almond-milk-msg.html

nuts-msg (134K) 1/ 7/08 Nuts, acorns, nut flours in medieval foods.
http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/nuts-msg.html

Like Kiri, I've ground almonds in my food processor to make almond flour when I needed it for various dessert confections. Just don't add any additional oil and if you are getting too much oil out of the almonds, you could try stopping halfway through and letting the almond crumbs rest on some paper towels, letting the oil drip off into the towels. Then finish grinding them. But a little bit of moisture is not going to turn the almonds into almond butter.

Stefan
PS: On a personal note, I just got told on Friday that my job will be terminated in 30 days unless I can prove my abilities and reduce what my boss sees as 'mistakes'. Maybe some people you can't ever make happy.
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****





More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list