I omitted milk of my diet firstly because it contains too much carbs: about 4,5g CH pro 100ml is over 10g of carbs a cup. Living on a 160g CH diet my morning coffe would have taken half my breakfast. Later it turned out that actually, diary products alltogether are not a good choice for me.
Reading about the subject, it turned out that a lot of people avoid milk for a lot of reasons: allergies, intolerances, disagreeing with milk industry today, vegan lifestyle, etc.
Luckily, there are many plant based alternatives available. The reason why I prefered the home-made alternatives is that this way I know exactly what is in my cup and it also costs a lot less compared to storebought products. So I tried several plant based milk alternatives, almond milk was my first try and remained my long-time favorite.
I’ve read on several blogs, that almond milk can be made of raw almonds only. However, I still tried with roasted almonds, and I turned out to be right! Roasted almonds don’t give such a rich, fatty milk as raw almonds, true, but the resulting drink has a very slight roasted almond flavor. Add a pinch of spice (nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon, clove) and there you go: roasted almond milk chai! Raw almond milk has a creamier consistency, a slight marzipan-like flavor and you can also steam raw almond milk for lattes (roasted milk cannot be steamed). Raw almond milk should be kept cool and consumed in about 3 days.
What you need to make your own almond milk (approx. 800ml):
130g or 1.5 cup of almonds
800ml or 3.5 cups of water
pinch of salt
sweetener (xylitol, stevia, etc.) to taste
cheese cloth, sieve
blender machine (1000ml or 4 cups volume)
1. For roasted almond milk, heat the convection oven to 150°C/302°F. Roast almonds in a dry pan, shaking them every 5 minutes for 15 minutes.
2. Soak almonds overnight in water, keep them in the refrigerator.
3. Pour off water of the almonds and put them in the blender. Add salt, sweetener, water and blend it together. Start blending on a lower notch to go easy on your blender! Blend for 1-2 minutes.
4. Put the cheesecloth in a sieve to filter your almond mixture. Pour in the mixture, and if it’s only dropping slowly, squeeze the cheesecloth into a small ball to retrieve the last precious drops. 🙂
That’s it! Now you can taste your very own almond milk.
You can also add some cocoa/carob powder or home made vanilla extract to the blender to spice things up a bit!
You can also add some cocoa/carob powder or home made vanilla extract to the blender to spice things up a bit!
The remaining almond pulp can be used in versatile ways, I’ll post some recipes on that topic soon.
Homemade plant based milks need to be kept in the refrigerator and consumed in about 3 days. You’ll experience some sedimentation: this doesn’t mean that there is anything wrong with your milk, it only shows that it’s homemade and not stabilized. So just stir it up and enjoy.
Taking into account the almonds only, there are about 1,5g CH/100ml carbs to count (without sweeteners).
This is the first post of a series on home-made plant based milks, I’ll be back soon! 😉
Leave a Reply