For the past year, I have a home-made hazelnut mocha to kick start my old engine every morning. I understand this isn’t the best thing to have all the time, and considering the amount of naughty food I eat, thank goodness I am not one of those multiple-cups-of-coffee-a-day peeps. I know my hazelnut mocha has a lot of calories and it isn’t the most fulfilling thing to have in the morning so as of late I’ve been trying to find healthier alternatives to give my old engine that boost.
I’ve heard a lot of about almond milk in the Thermomix food forums, being great on its own or as a base to create some fantastic smoothies. Now I know you can buy almond milk from the store but when I went to look for it, I found it with the UHT milk on the shelves and this put me off a little. So I bought fresh almonds and natural muslin (or kitchen grade) cloth from my local textiles shop and thought to make freshly squeezed almond milk a whirl.
Prep and Cooking Time – 5 minutes + soaking time | Serves – 2
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
Soak almonds in water with a pinch of salt. Ensure that a generous amount of water used as the almonds will expand. Leave the almonds to soak overnight.
After soaking overnight, drain the almonds using your TM basket. Place into the TM bowl, along with all the remaining ingredients and blend 2 min / speed 9.
Pour the contents of your TM bowl into a nut milk bag or through two or more layers of natural muslin cloth, into a jar or bowl to catch the milk. Squeeze by hand to extract the almond milk liquid.
Chill the milk collected before serving.
NOTES AND VARIATIONS
If you find that the serving size for this recipe isn’t enough for you, double all the ingredients.
I would also say that if you have a crazy sweet tooth like me, adding more dates would help make it even sweeter still. I think I will be for my next batch, especially as I will more likely be drinking this plain.
Also, don’t discard the almond pulp left behind after squeezing all the milky goodness out of it. The remaining pulp can be added to cookies and biscuits too!
* Inspired by Jude Blereau’s Almond Milk recipe found in the Wholefood with Jude Blereau Thermomix recipe booklet. *
