Sunday 7 September 2014

RECIPE | Homemade Raw Almond Milk




Making your own almond milk is easy and delicious!

My hubby hates almond milk (store bought) but loves this version! It is sure to win over some people that don't normally like it. 

It turns out smooth & creamy just like regular milk but much tastier!

When I look on the cartons of store bought almond milk, most brands use about 1%-2% almonds in the whole carton, so you are basically paying for water with other nasty ingredients. 

I add no sugar to the mix, you can add maple syrup as I have listed below or could try stevia or rice malt syrup.

The below quantity makes roughly 1.5 litres (depends on how much milk you squeeze out at the end!)

Ingredients:
2 cups raw almonds
5 cups filtered water (plus more to soak almonds)
2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
A pinch of good quality sea salt
+ a cheese cloth or muslin wrap (to strain the milk)
+ strainer
+ bottles to store your milk in

Directions:
Soak almonds over night, covered in water and a pinch of salt. This will soften them and make them sprout.

Once ready, rinse the almonds and throw away the water that you used to soak them.

Into a blender, put all of the almonds with 2 cups of filtered water and a mix until it forms a smooth paste. 

Once smooth, add rest of water and all remaining ingredients and blend until very smooth (I leave the blender on for a couple of minutes, how long you will need to blend will depend on how strong your blender is).

Now you need to strain the milk, if you leave it as is, it will be powdery from the skin of the almonds and not a very nice consistency.

Put a couple of layers of your cheese cloth or muslin wrap over a strainer and strain the milk into a bowl, then be sure to squeeze any excess milk out of the cloth.

Then pour into clean bottles (I use a funnel to get it in without any mess).

You can keep it in the fridge for up to 4 days.

You will be left with almond meal in your cloth. You can dry this out in a very low oven and store it to replace store bought almond meal or you can keep it "wet" in the fridge for a few days and use it in the same way. 

Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Bee xx