Oh
you
this is my Doughty of cakes and more and
you're watching the video series baking
for beginners there are a number of
recipes which required almond meal that
is ground almonds and you could be using
them in your cakes or brownies or maybe
some other desert and using almond meal
in your drawer cakes and desserts gives
it a really good um nutty taste and
aroma to your dessert and your bakes you
could of course purchase the
commercially available almond meal if
you have easy access to it but then be
sure that it's not rancid because nuts
tend to go rancid very quickly
commercial almond meal is also more fine
and more uniform in texture but if you
have to grind elements at home to make
your almond meal that's also quite easy
especially if the recipe has some amount
of sugar or flour in it you would need
to keep a few things in mind when you
grind almonds if you have stored your
nuts in the freezer then you need to get
them to room temperature first
if you prefer your almond meal
completely free of the color of this
darkish skin then you could first put
your almonds in some water maybe some
hot water and then apple of the skin so
that you could have some blanched
almonds and then you could dry these
completely you would have to wait for
these to dry completely and then you
could continue with the process of
grinding them but otherwise unless it's
really relevant in the recipe I do not
find the need to blanch the elements
because it only gives the almond meal a
slightly darker color which is fine with
me doesn't really bother me
whenever you grind any kind of nuts they
tend to leave out their natural oils and
the longer you process them there's more
oil released by the mats so the aim here
is to keep the processing time as short
as possible so that you do make the nuts
a fine and powdery without getting them
oily so what I like to do is I like to
first take these whole almonds I like to
put them in a thick ziplock bag or a
plastic cover and then I bash them up
really well using a rolling pin so that
you get something like this this is
almost ground now we need them a lot
more finer but then what we can do is we
can now process these almonds which are
already quite fine so that you get your
really fine almond meal without having
to do a lot of processing in your food
processor when you bash it the almonds
and make them something like this then
you do not need to process them for a
very long time and
so you do get defined alvin real without
making the powder really oily if the
almonds turn oily or your pasty then you
will not be able to mix it really well
with the flour and then now you may also
have some lumps of almond meal here and
there which is not really Pleasant now
assuming I need about 50 grams of almond
meal in my recipe I will take about 50
grams of almonds and I haven't blanched
them of course I have just bashed them
up with a rolling pin
I'll be putting this in the smallest jar
of my processor you do not want to fill
the chart or even think nuts halfway
through because more than nuts then both
the processing time and then the danger
of them turning oily again and now I
have taken about 2 tablespoons of sugar
which is from the recipe that is from
the ingredient list of the recipe if the
recipe has half a cup of sugar then I
have taken 2 tablespoons out of it and
then I am going to be using this with
the almonds now and now we two of grind
this and really short spurts as in just
a few seconds at a time and then again
keep redistribute in the nuts and then a
few seconds again and always at the
lowest speed
so that you have your elements quite
fine this may not be as fine as
commercially available almond meal but I
think this works good if at any point of
time you think that your nuts are
turning oily then you could try adding
some flour in the recipe the recipe
contains some flour or maybe you could
also use flour in place of the sugar if
the recipe has flour in it you could now
store this a titin freezer for quite
some time maybe a few months and do not
forget to label the cover if you're as
forgetful as me because then you may
forget how much of almonds and how much
of sugar is already in here so that you
can keep that in mind when you are
making something
so this goes to the list of those small
things which can make a lot of
difference to your bakes and desserts
there are lots more tips coming up on
cakes and move please do stay tuned