Blanched Almonds
Even at the cheapest place I’ve found it, almond flour still costs five dollars for a 250g bag, which is not cheap. As far as I can assume, this is because the processing greatly reduces its shelf life. Since I use almond flour in several of the recipes I make around the holidays, I wanted a cheaper alternative than shelling out for the prepackaged stuff, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to muster that, since almonds themselves aren’t all that cheap.
At Costco this week, I picked up a 1.36kg bag (about 3 pounds) of whole roasted almonds for $9.99. As far as almond flour goes, this is roughly 50% savings, made up for by the hassle of having to blanch and grind them all myself. It’s not a particularly enjoyable undertaking, but it’s no more tedious than shelling peas. So, in case you’ve ever wanted to blanch your own almonds, here’s the method for such things. Of course, this would work for all nuts, such as pistachios or hazelnuts, where you wish to remove their skins before baking.
- However many whole almonds you wish to blanch
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Add all of the almonds at once and boil for 90 seconds, then drain in a colander and run under cold water to prevent further cooking.
- Remove the skins from all the almonds by pressing them between your fingers, rubbing them between your hands, placing them in a large bowl with another bowl on top and shaking, placing them in a dry, clean tea towel and rubbing, etc. Whatever gets the job done. Discard the bitter peelings.
- Spread out all of the skinless almonds on the baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes, being careful that they do not take on any color. Turn the oven off, prop open the door and allow to cool and dry out completely.
- Use the blanched almonds as is or grind to a powder in a food processor with a few pinches of cornstarch or wheat flour to absorb excess oil to make almond flour for your baking needs.
It’s true, I’ve only ever bought nut flour once in the last 20 years since I started making product that required their use. I started doing so because at the time you could not find the nut flour. I started with hazelnut flour. The hazelnuts or filberts, are oven baked. Just like the skinned almonds, but without removing skins. On removing them from oven, wrap them in a clean cloth to allow the steam to loosen the skins. When cooler, use the same cloth and rub them together; and skins will, mostly, come right off. Grind in processor, for flour, to make delicious coffee hazelnut cake. Cheers!
Funny you should suggest this now! I just tried this method with pistachios last night and it works pretty well :)
Thanks for the reinforcement of the technique. I had not tried it with other nuts? But would have; if faced with the problem, since there does not seem to be a better way? As a vegetarian, nuts figure quite prominently in my cuisine. ….. aw nuts! ;-] I’ve been told I make a “killer rice pilau”? Without a pinch of asafoetida, I’m sure it would be much inferior? Why do I bring it up? Because I often put in chopped nuts and dried fruit. Cranberry, mango or raisins, with addition of almond, cashew or filbert. Is a regular staple, for me. ….. Cheers Jamie.