Oh Nuts Blog

When almond milk was first on the market, my brother visited my house and spied a carton of almond milk in the refrigerator. Picking it up, he snorted derisively and asked, "How do you milk an almond?" Almond milk--and other milk alternatives--have come a long way since those early days! Now multiple brands and flavors can be found in many grocery stores, and people are recognizing that they're not just for the lactose intolerant--many folks simply enjoy the slightly nutty flavor and ultra-creamy texture of almond milk.

You can purchase almond milk easily enough, but along with those almonds comes lots of sugar, preservatives, stabilizers, and other not-so-natural ingredients. But I have good news! Making homemade almond milk is actually really simple, and produces a deliciously creamy beverage with minimal effort. So whether you're already an almond milk devotee or are curious to see what all the fuss is about, let's make almond milk--no actual milking of almonds required.

Almond Milk Recipe
yield: about 5 cups almond milk

• 1.5 cups whole blanched almonds or other whole raw almonds
• 4 cups water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 tbsp maple syrup or honey
• dash cinnamon

• Blender
• metal strainer
• cheesecloth

First thing, get to soaking those almonds. I like to use whole blanched almonds because they already have the papery, slightly bitter almond skins removed. If you don't have blanched almonds you can either blanch them yourself, or use regular almonds. They work just fine, but you might have to strain your milk a little more carefully to get all the skins out. At any rate, the most important characteristic is that your almonds are raw, not toasted.

Cover the almonds with water, and soak them for at least 4 hours, or overnight.This softens them and makes them much easier to blend.

Once they're soft, it's time to milk those suckers. Strain the water from the almonds, and place the soaked almonds in your blender. Add 1.5 cups of water. We blend them with less water in the beginning, so they become a really smooth paste.

Blend the almonds and water for 1-2 minutes. If your blender is weak like mine, you'll probably need to stop a few times and move things around with a spatula. Do not be alarmed that your almond milk starts out looking like chunky baby food. This is all part of the plan.

After a few minutes, you should have a beautiful smooth puree, like this. However, we're not making almond puree, so we need to keep going. Add the cinnamon and maple syrup or honey...

And add the remaining 2.5 cups of water. Blend everything together for another 2-3 minutes, until it is completely smooth and frothy. Taste the milk, and adjust the vanilla, cinnamon, and sweetener to taste. You might also find that a pinch of salt brings out the other flavors in the milk.

At this point the milk could technically be finished--after all, you have a substance with the color and consistency of milk, right? But all the almond solids in the milk tend to give it a chalky texture, so for a smoother, more creamy product we'll strain the almond milk.

Place 3 or 4 layers of cheesecloth over a metal strainer set over a bowl. The strainer or a single layer of cheesecloth wouldn't strain the almond milk well enough, since it's so well-blended. Pour the almond milk through the strainer into the bowl. You might have to do this part in batches, depending on the size of your strainer and bowl. Use a spoon or spatula to press down on the strainer and move the solids around, to help the almond milk through the cheesecloth.

Once most of the milk has passed through the strainer, gather up the cheesecloth and gently squeeze it to remove excess liquid. You'll be left with really fine almond meal inside the cheesecloth. You can discard it, or you can dry it out in a very low oven and use it in place of almond flour in baking recipes!

Hey, you've made almond milk! Well done. You can use it in place of milk for drinking, on cereal, or in many baking recipes, and I can personally recommend it as an accompaniment for warm chocolate chip cookies. It keeps in the refrigerator for 3-4 days. Now that you've seen how easy it is to make almond milk, you can experiment with using other nuts--raw cashews also make a delicious milk alternative.

Today we're going to take that delicious almond milk we talked about in the last blog post and make--what's that? You haven't made almond milk yet? Well, what are you waiting for? It's awesome! Go make some right now. I'll wait.

You're back? Wonderful. As I was saying, almond milk is a great addition to many recipes. Aside from drinking it plain or using it in cereals, its natural creaminess makes it a perfect fit for smoothies, coffee, and best of all, hot chocolate. And when you combine that almond milk and chocolate with a little coconut flavor...you have a ridiculously good cup of thick, rich sipping chocolate, inspired by a classic candy bar.

Almond Joy Hot Chocolate
yield: 2 small mugs of chocolate

• 1 cup almond milk, preferably homemade
• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 3.5 oz (about 1/2 cup) milk or semi-sweet chocolate, or mix of chocolates. Don't use dark chocolate unless you like a slightly bitter cup of chocolate
• toasted coconut
• 1-2 drops almond extract (optional)

This first step isn't mandatory, at all, but I must recommend it because it makes your hot chocolate mugs look ever so cute. Melt the chocolate, and dip the tops of the mugs in the chocolate about 1/4". You can leave them like they are...

Or dip the wet chocolate tops into the toasted coconut! This gives your mugs a lovely rim of chocolate and coconut, and not only does it look great, but it adds a little extra flavor as well. Place them in the refrigerator to chill while you prepare the hot chocolate.

Combine the almond milk and the coconut milk in a small saucepan. If you want to boost the almond flavor, add a drop or two of almond extract. You cannot be too careful in adding the extract! Few things are worse than an overpowering almond flavor, so start small and taste as you go. The extract should add just an extra hint of almond, and should barely be noticeable.

Once your liquids are mixed, add the chocolate you previously melted to the saucepan, and place the pan over medium heat.

Whisk the chocolate and milks together over medium heat. At first, they'll resist combining, and you'll have little specks of chocolate floating in your milk. Don't give up hope! Keep whisking and heating...

And as the chocolate heats, everything will even out and become beautifully thick and smooth. Taste the hot chocolate--if your milk and your chocolate are not very sweet, you might want to add a litttle sugar or honey to balance them out.

Serve your almond joy hot chocolate in your beautifully crafted mugs. This is a very rich "sipping chocolate," and I have found that a little goes a long way--even with my sweet tooth. It also thickens as it cools, so be sure to drink it when it's warm. Enjoy!

Some desserts seem to catch the collective imagination and become popular overnight. For instance, olive oil cakes have been popping up everywhere lately—one minute restaurant menus were full of chocolate lava cakes and crème brulee, and the next instant rustic olive oil cakes had taken over. At first I thought it was a new fad, dreamt up by some young chef, but it turns out that olive oil cakes have been a staple of Italian households for generations—and with good reason!

Homey olive oil cakes are the ultimate comfort dessert—the oil gives them a rich flavor and keeps them moist for days on end. This particular almond olive oil cake recipe uses darkly toasted almonds to deepen the flavor, and includes whole citrus fruits for a vibrant citrus flavor. If you've never tasted an olive oil cake before, you owe it to yourself to try one, and see what all the fuss is about.

Almond Olive Oil Cake
yield: one 9-inch cake

• 6 oz raw almonds (about 1.25 cups)
• 1 medium orange
• 1 lemon
• 4 large eggs at room temperature
• 1.5 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup good-quality olive oil
• powdered sugar, for dusting
• A food processor

  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

  

  This recipe is really unusual, in that it incorporates whole pieces of fruit into the batter. To prepare the orange and lemon to be cooked, we have to boil them for a while to soften them and reduce the bitterness. So, put the orange and lemon in a medium pot, and cover them with water. Place the pot over medium-high heat, and once the water starts boiling, turn the heat down and simmer the citrus for 30 minutes. Drain the pot and let the orange and lemon cool. If you want to speed this process, you can put them in a bowl of ice water.

  

  While your citrus is boiling (gee, you don't hear that phrase in recipes every day, do you?) spread the almonds out on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven. So much of the flavor from this cake comes from the almonds, so it's important to get them good and truly toasted: you want them to be very fragrant and to have gone from a light, beige nut (if you're using blanched almonds) to a dark golden brown color. It takes me about 20 minutes of toasting, and I stir after every 5 minutes so the nuts don't burn in one place.

  Once they're roasty-toasty, take them out of the oven and let them cool completely. If you're lucky, your toasted almonds and boiled citrus will be cooled at about the same time, so you can finish up the rest of the cake.

  

  Place the toasted almonds in the bowl of a food processor, and pulse them until the almonds are finely ground. Watch the processing carefully so your almonds don't turn to nut butter. Remove the almonds from the bowl of the food processor.

  

  Cut the orange in half, and take out any seeds it might have. Cut the lemon in half and use a knife or a spoon to take out the pulp, leaving the rind. We're going to process the orange halves and the lemon rind in the food processor--don't bother washing the bowl with the almond crumbs, it's all going to the same place eventually.

  

  Process the orange and lemon rind in the processor until it's a slightly chunky puree. I promise, this is the most work you're going to do for this recipe. It's all coasting downhill from here.

  

  In a large bowl, whisk the four room temperature eggs until they're nice and frothy. Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until it thickens.

  

  This, my friends, is what thickened eggs and sugar should look like. A be-yoo-tiful ribbon of egg artfully dropping from the whisk!

  

  Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, and whisk until they're well-combined.

  

  Now for all the fun stuff! Add the ground almonds, the citrus goop, and the olive oil, and stir with a spatula until everything is well-mixed.

  I must pause here for a confession. Usually I'm a cake batter fiend, and looove licking the spatula and bowl. In this case, I didn't really like the taste of the batter. (I know!) I was worried it would bode ill for the olive oil cake, but the cake still turned out fabulously--it's just that the batter was a little strong for my taste. So never fear if you give it an exploratory lick and aren't immediately in love.

  

  Back to business! Spray cooking spray in a 9 or 10 inch springform pan, or cake pan with removable bottom. Pour your batter into the pan, and bake it in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes, or until it is set in the middle and does not jiggle when you move the pan.

  

  Check to make sure the cake is done by inserting a toothpick--if it comes out clean, or with just a few crumbs attached, you're golden. Let the cake cool in its pan, and once cool, run a knife around the edges and take it out of the pan.

  

  Now for the really fun part. Dust the cake with powdered sugar before serving it. If you have a doily handy, lay the doily on top of the cake and sprinkle powdered sugar on top of that, then carefully remove the doily--you'll have beautiful, lacy powdered sugar design on your cake!

  

  This almond olive oil cake is perfect paired with a cup of afternoon tea. It is also one of those cakes that gets better with age--I actually prefer it on the second day, as the almond, olive oil, and orange flavors have a chance to mellow and blend together. Well-wrapped, you can keep this cake at room temperature for up to four or five days, or it can be frozen indefinitely.

  All text and images (c) Elizabeth LaBau

St. Patrick's Day is the one day a year when it's socially acceptable to pinch other people, eat questionable green foods, and flaunt our worst Irish accents. Of course I plan on doing all of these things--helloooo, green oatmeal!--but I'm also looking forward to enjoying other St. Patrick's Day goodies, like these Irish Candy Potatoes.

No actual potatoes were harmed in the making of these adorable look-alikes. Instead, a super-simple chocolate walnut fudge is rolled into potato shapes, dredged in a cinnamon-cocoa mixture, and finished with specks of walnuts to create spuds that could fool even the most discerning Irish eye. So if you feel like celebrating St. Patrick's Day with something other than green eggs and ham, give these Irish Candy Potatoes a try!

Irish Candy Potatoes
yield: 24 1-oz (about 2" long) potatoes

• 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 7-oz jar marshmallow cream or fluff
• 3 tbsp water
• 1.5 cups walnut halves
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup ground cinnamon

Heat the oven to 350 degrees F, and toast the walnuts until they are golden and fragrant, about 15 minutes. Make sure to stir them after every 5 minutes so they don't burn around the edges.

Let the walnuts cool, then chop them into coarse pieces. Of course, you can always use chopped walnut pieces instead, but I think the nuts have a stronger, fresher flavor if you toast and chop them on an as-needed basis. Now that your nuts are taken care of, let's talk chocolate.

Combine the semi-sweet chocolate chips and the unsweetened chocolate, and melt them together in a large bowl in the microwave. Stir it in 30-second intervals, so the chocolate doesn't scorch.

Once the chocolate is melted and smooth, add the jar of marshmallow cream and the 3 tablespoons of water, and stir everything together.

At this point, you might be thinking I'm celebrating April Fool's Day instead of St. Patrick's Day and playing a prank on you, because there is nothing appetizing about this mixture at first. The marshmallow cream leaves big streaks, the water doesn't incorporate, and the whole mess looks like one giant Kitchen Don't. But wait...

Keep stirring, and you will eventually be left with this gorgeous mixture! Light, mousse-y chocolate fudge, just begging to be formed into potatoes. Patience, patience. Just a few steps to go.

For one thing, we have to add the nuts! Add 1 cup of the toasted, chopped walnuts to the chocolate fudge mixture, and stir until they're dispersed. Reserve the remaining walnuts to decorate with later.

Press a piece of cling wrap on top of the chocolate, and refrigerate the candy until it's firm enough to scoop and roll--about 75-90 minutes. Ideally it should be firm but pliable. If you leave it in too long and it gets rock-hard, you'll have to let it spend a few hours at room temperature warming up before it's workable again.

While you're waiting for your fudge to firm up, mix up the coating. Whisk together the cocoa powder, granulated sugar, and cinnamon in a shallow bowl, and set aside until you're ready to make your potatoes.

When your chocolate mixture is workable, use a cookie scoop or large spoon to form big balls of fudge. Mine turned out to be around 1 oz, which yields a potato shape about 2" long. Of course you can make them whatever size you like--bonus points if anyone decides to make them the size of a real potato! (Double bonus points if you manage to actually eat the whole thing.)

Roll each potato in the cinnamon-cocoa mixture, turning it so that it's even coated with the powder. This gives the potatoes their realistic appearance and an extra flavor boost, so don't be shy about coating them.

Finally, take the remaining walnut pieces and poke 3-4 small pieces into each potato at random intervals. This last step takes your potatoes from "passable imitations" to "Vegas-worthy potato impersonators!"

At this point your candy potatoes can be eaten immediately, or you can store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. If they sit for a few days, they may need to be dusted with more coating mix before serving them. Have a safe, happy, and delicious St. Patrick's Day!
All text and images (c) 2011 Elizabeth LaBau

You've had milk. You've had cookies. You've probably even had milk and cookies together. But I'll bet you've never had milk and cookies like this.

Allow me to introduce you to the skillet Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie Cookie, also known as My New Best Friend. This ingenious recipe is a variation of your basic chocolate chip cookie, with one huge (pun intended) difference. Instead of the endless cookie parade of scooping, rotating trays, timing batches, transferring to cooling racks, and all the other tasks associated with baking a big batch of cookies, baking this recipe requires only two steps:

1. put skillet cookie in oven
2. eat skillet cookie

Oh, and did I mention you can serve it like a slice of pie, with ice cream on top? Oh yes you can. Something tells me this will be your new best friend, too.

Skillet Cookie Recipe
yield: 8-12 cookie slices or one big ole cookie for a big appetite!

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup (6 oz) butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups chocolate chips
• 1.5 cups chopped walnuts or pecans
• vanilla ice cream, to serve (optional)

Oh yes! We can't forget the most important ingredient in this Skillet Cookies recipe--the skillet! You'll want to use a 10-inch oven-safe skillet (this last part is very important, as there are few things worse than the smell of burning plastic.) I use cast iron, which works marvelously, but any oven-safe skillet should work. The size is also flexible--you could use anything from a 9-12 inch skillet, you'll just have to adjust the cooking time.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and whisk or sift them together. Set this aside for a moment.

Place the softened butter and the two sugars in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix them together on medium-high speed using the stand mixer or a hand mixer for about 2 minutes, until they're light and fluffy.

Scrape down the paddle and the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix again until the egg is fully incorporated into the butter. Using an egg that is the same temperature as the other ingredients really speeds this process along, which is why so many baking recipes call for "room temperature eggs." You'll thank me when that little tidbit comes up in Trivial Pursuit!

So after the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla are mixed together, you'll have a lovely fluffy, gloopy mixture just begging to be made into cookies. It may not look like much yet, but things are about to get really good.

Add those dry ingredients you mixed earlier, and turn the mixer to low speed. Mix it just until the flour disappears into the batter. Stop the mixer as soon as you get to this point, because the more this dough is mixed, the tougher your cookies will be. And nobody likes a tough cookie!

Add the chocolate chips and the chopped walnuts or pecans, and stir them in by hand. While you're at it, give the sides and bottom of the bowl a good scrape to incorporate any butter that needs to be mixed into the dough.

Stir until you have the world's most nibble-able dough. Because we're making one giant cookie, you can go ahead and have a few tastes of the skillet cookie dough at this point, but try to control yourself--it's about to get so much better.

If you're using a well-seasoned cast iron pan, there's no need to grease it before you put the cookie dough in. (Trust me, there's enough butter in these babies to keep them from sticking.) But if your pan's not very well seasoned, or you're particularly concerned about getting your skillet cookie out in one piece, go ahead and rub a very thin layer of oil or butter into the pan, then scrape the cookie dough into the pan and smooth it into an even layer.

Bake the skillet cookie at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, until it is puffed, golden, and the edges have nicely browned. If you're unsure, it's better to err on the side of underbaking, because the cookie will continue to cook for a few minutes once it's out of the oven. Plus, many people enjoy a soft and gooey cookie, but it's rarer to find a hard & crispy cookie fan.

Let the skillet cookie cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes, until it's warm but no longer hot. Use a knife to cut it into wedges (8 if you're hungry, 12 if you're feeling more restrained) and serve like a slice of pie.

I like my skillet cookie served warm, with a big scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and a sprinkling of chopped walnuts. It's also wonderful with chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, or dulce de leche.

All text and images (c) Elizabeth LaBau