How to make almond flour yourself
Almond flour is a product often used in confectionery: it is an essential component of French macaroons, often used in sand dough and various creams and fillings. In France, you can buy almond flour without problems, but in our country this product is quite exotic and it is not always easy to buy. But our hostesses are not afraid of it - they know how to cook condensed milk and make mascarpone from cream, and it's easy to prepare almond flour by yourself, you just need a little free time and a coffee grinder.
First, you need to peel the almonds from their dark skins, so that the baked goods will have a beautiful white color, without any nut shells.
To do this, rinse the almonds with water, put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them.
Allow the almonds to cool.
After 10 minutes, rinse the almonds with cold water, put them back in the bowl and pour hot water again. After 10 minutes, drain the water, and peel the nuts from the skins - it is easily separated and almonds as if "jump" from the shell.
The peeled almonds can already be used - if you need the nuts whole.
If you need almond flour, then you need to farther a little bit of fiddling.
First, the almonds need to be dried, as they cannot be ground well when wet. You can either dry them for a few days on a spread towel or for a few hours in the oven. To do this, preheat the oven to 100 degrees, scatter the nuts on a parchment-lined baking tray and dry them. Periodically check "dryness" almonds - it should dry out, but in no case burn. Cool the dried almonds completely.
Grind the dried and cooled almonds into flour with a coffee grinder. Grind quickly, in several steps literally for 10-20 seconds, periodically shaking the grinder so that the nut particles do not stick to the walls and blades. If you don't pause and grind for too long, the blades of the grinder will heat the nuts, from which they will release oil and stick together. The same procedure can be done in a meat grinder by grinding the nuts two or three times.
Store almond flour in a tightly closed glass jar in a dry place.
To extend its shelf life, keep it in a dark place and do not spread it with a wet spoon.
Before adding almond flour to dough, sift it through a sieve - this will get rid of any lumps and allow it to be evenly distributed in the dough or cream.
But if you plan to prepare, for example, chocolate dough or mousse, where it is not important to get white color, you can safely grind almonds unpeeled, right with the skin.
Try it and you'll get it right!
