Almond milk and almond flour

Almond milk is not my favorite.  Especially store bought almond milk.  However, I wanted to try making it and I love using almond flour in certain baking products.  This recipe makes almond milk homemade and then you use the rest of the pulp to make almond flour.  

Start with 3 cups of almonds.  I used these almonds bc its what I had...but literally, use what you have or what you prefer.  I don't mind using the skin, but if you prefer not to, then either peel them or buy peeled almonds or almond slivers, or whatever you prefer.  

Pour 6 Cups of boiling water over the almonds and let them sit for about 1 hour.  If they sit longer its not a problem...you could also use room temp water and let them sit for 6-8 hours, but why make the process longer than it has to be...Right!

I added about 1Tbs of Vanilla to the almonds and water to give it a slight vanilla flavor.  I really liked that addition, I think in the future, I might add a vanilla bean into it cut open.  You could also add some prunes to the almonds and the water to soak to add sweetness to it.  Whatever you prefer.  

After the almonds have soaked, take the almonds and water in batches and puree it in a blender.  If you use an actual vanilla bean, I would not puree it, take it out before you puree.  It should look something like this:

Once all the almonds and water have been pureed, place a double or triple layered cheese cloth over a bowl or pitcher and pour the thick mixture over the cheese cloth. You want to be careful that none of the pulp leaves the cheese cloth and all the liquid is squeezed out of the almond pulp.  I got impatient and started squeezing before I adequately secured the cheese cloth and I had to strain it twice!

This is the almond milk...easy peasy!  This recipe left me with about 36 oz of almond milk.  I put mine in a bottle and used it as needed.  I actually liked it a lot better than store bought almond milk.  It had a better flavor!  Just remember to shake the almond milk every time before you use it.  It has a tendancy to settle and separate as it sits in the fridge.  

So now what....well, all that pulp that you strained out, put it on a baking sheet or two and preheat the oven to the lowest it will go (about 200*) and let it dry out for about 2 hours or so.  When I do this again, I will use two pans.  One pan seemed to take forever to dry and I didn't quite dry it out completely which I could tell when I took it out, but I didn't figure it would matter much...and it doesn't, except that by not getting all the moisture out, I ended up with moldy almond flour after about a week.  So...very important to get ALL the moisture out.  

Once the almond pulp is dry, run it through a coffee grinder or food processor.  You are left with this!

It was delicious!  I made pizza crust out of it and flatbreads out of it...Great!