Almond meal/flour - what's your favourite recipe for this ingredient?

I've been drying and saving the leftover almond meal from making almond milk. I could put it through the mill and make a fine flour, or I could leave it as is and add to a recipe. This won't have as strong a flavour as ground almonds, but it would otherwise go to waste which isn't acceptable given the price of almonds these days.

Any good recipe ideas? My only food avoidance is soy, so gluten and eggs are fine. I'm looking for inspiration but also for something that would make a good snack like food, not too sweet, that I can take with me to eat when I'm out and about.

trampledbygeese
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10 Comments

Imogen July 31, 2016
olive oil snacking cake with rosemary, dark chocolate & hazelnuts

adapted from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain
serves: makes 1 nine inch cake
notes: All spelt flour would work just fine if you don’t have almond meal. You can leave the rosemary out too if you aren’t feeling super adventurous :)
dry mix:
1 1/2 cups whole spelt flour
1 cup almond meal
1/2 cup natural sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 sprig of rosemary, leaves finely chopped
3/4 tsp fine sea salt
wet mix:
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup olive oil
3/4 cup non-dairy milk (or dairy milk, whatever you like)
100 grams dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted, peeled and chopped roughly
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch round cake pan with olive oil. Place a circle of parchment onto the bottom of the pan and grease that as well.
Sift the spelt flour into a large bowl. Dump any remaining bits of grain in the sifter into the bowl. Add the almond meal, sugar, baking powder, rosemary and sea salt. Whisk to combine.
In a separate medium bowl, whisk the applesauce, olive oil and milk together thoroughly. Pour the wet mix into dry mix in the large bowl. Carefully stir and fold mixture together with a spatula until just combined. Fold in chocolate and hazelnuts.
Scrape batter into prepared cake pan and smooth out the top. Bake on the center rack for 45-50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out of the center part clean. Allow to cool thoroughly before removing from the pan and serving.
 
Shuna L. July 31, 2016
almond meal and almond flour are the same ingredient. most purveyors/packagers don't differentiate. i prefer almond meal make with a whole (skin on) raw almond, but most bakers use blanched.

sorry but I have to sign off now, but thanks for the conversation!
 
Shuna L. July 31, 2016
Hello Trampledbygeese,

If you are immediately dehydrating the solids leftover from making almond milk, there should be no issue.

My fresh almond milk tends to spoil after about ten days in the fridge, give or take a couple days, and unless I freeze the solids leftover, they will sour after just a few days - I am not a food scientist, but my belief is that water/moisture attracts spores that grow mold.
 
trampledbygeese July 31, 2016
Thank makes a lot of sense, thanks Shuna. That sour flavour sounds more like a bacteria than a mould, or perhaps a combination of both?

Are almond flour and almond meal the same thing? I was assuming that almond meal would be coarsely ground and almond flour would be very fine powder. But the more I read about it, the more they seem to be interchangeable in recipes... possibly? What are your thoughts?
 

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Shuna L. July 29, 2016
The waste/solids from making almond milk are tricky. You need to use them in baking right away or they can go off. But, to be clear, this is not "almond meal." Almond flour and meal are ground almonds.

A few ideas:
replace 10% of the flour with almond milk solids in: muffins, waffles, crepes, pancakes, quickbread, yeasted breads. I do not suggest putting this ingredient in cookies unless the cookie is more like a cake - ie: whoopie pies or madeleines.

you could also add this to: hummus, baba ganouj, romanesco... those spread/sauce/salad dressing options are basically endless. *but* adding the leftover almond milk solids will greatly increase the item's shortened "shelf life." you could even mush it into ricotta for lasagna!

also - would be great in: smoothies, shakes, and your compost bin. any pets that can eat nuts, can eat this as well.

great question! I hope this helps!
 
trampledbygeese July 29, 2016
That's good to know. I wasn't sure what to call it. I've been dehydrating the leftovers immediately after making the milk (with the thought it would be easier to mill into flour if dry. So far they haven't shown any signs of going rancid. Is there anything else that can go wrong with them? What should I be looking for? Thanks for the great ideas.
 
trampledbygeese July 31, 2016
I would love to learn more about how this spoils and reduces shelf life. Is it simply oils in the nuts going rancid quickly or is there more to it than that? If you could tell me more it would be a great help, then I can know what steps to take to extend the shelf life.
 
Valhalla July 29, 2016
You could alter the sugar to your taste to make more of a snack cake than a dessert, but I love this fig torte with almond meal:
http://www.beyondtheplate.net/2011/09/fig-torte-a-paper-lovely-giveaway/
Ditto for this muffin recipe that I had bookmarked--and which will use up a lot more of that meal
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/flourless-almond-blueberry-muffins

Some kind of crunchy granola bar would probably be great.
 
Valhalla July 29, 2016
You could alter the sugar to your taste to make more of a snack cake than a dessert, but I love this fig torte with almond meal:
http://www.beyondtheplate.net/2011/09/fig-torte-a-paper-lovely-giveaway/
Ditto for this muffin recipe that I had bookmarked--and which will use up a lot more of that meal
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/flourless-almond-blueberry-muffins

Some kind of crunchy granola bar would probably be great.
 
Nancy July 29, 2016
Make biscotti, using your meal instead of almonds.
Also, cross-pollinate a basic recipe with one for Parmesan cheese for more of a snack, less of a dessert, coffee-accompaniment.
Here are 2 recipes for the Parmesan biscotti, for you to adapt...
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/parmesan-black-pepper-biscotti-236698
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/double_corn_parmesan_biscotti.html
 
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