Homemade Almond Milk

My dear friend Allison just started a blog of her own. She recently tried her hand at homemade almond milk.  Inspired, I decided to whip up a batch of my own. She owns a shmancy pancy Vitamix, so I crossed my fingers that our regular old blender would do the trick.

I added a generous 1/2 cup of almonds to a bowl and covered with water (about 2 cups), topped with plastic wrap and left it on the counter for about 24 hours. (You don't need to do that long - 8 hours should do the trick.)

I once saw on Good Eats that when soaked, the skins separate easily from the nut. I was having a little too much fun doing this and showed Francis. Just then, I got a phone call and stepped into the other room. Being ever the helpful husband and assuming me removing the skins was part of the recipe, (not just my child-like curiosity) he tediously removed each one and tossed them. This is not part of the recipe, but once in the trash bin, we decided, what the heck, carry on. That's why from this point on - we were working with naked almonds. 

I added them to our blender and poured in 2 cups of water and left it to puree away. 

Meanwhile, I cut a piece of cheesecloth for straining the milk.

I MacGuyvered a bowl with a fine metal strainer as well as the cheescloth - just to be super sure that any pesky almond pieces didn't make their way into my milk. 

I poured it in. The texture of the milk was smooth and completely blended. Proud of you little blender that could!  

Then, I removed the metal strainer and squeezed the bag gently to get all remaining milk out. 

The finished, pre bottled product. 

Using a funnel, I poured it into a plain glass bottle. And, as you can see was ever so neat. (Lies!)

After that, I was left with almond particles in the cheesecloth. On A's blog, she said to save this because it can be used in recipes, like granola bars. I'm following suit and will probably copy cat her again whenever she uses hers in a recipe. 

The finished product. 

Thanks for the idea, A. 

images: hilaryclair