Blanching Almonds and Home Made Almond Meal

Almond meals are extensively used in baking cakes, cookies, macaroons and tarts. They are also used in marzipan. Buying almond meal may be a bit expensive. Preparing it at home is a very interesting procedure. Peeled almonds are also used in a lot of desserts. You can blanch, peel, dry and store it in fridge for further use. I can not get almond meal in Madurai. So after going through the web, I decided to do it myself. Make sure that the almonds are dry before pulsing it. Else you will end up with paste rather than powder. The secret in getting the flour is to pulse your mixer. DO not run it continuously. And do not grind it for a long time. The heat generated will interact with the oil and the whole mixture will go clumpy.

 

 

I used the meal in home made Eggless almond paste /  marzipan. The result was very nice.

 

 

Wash and add enough water to soak the almonds. Heat it. When it comes to boil, switch off stove. Let it soak for 15minutes. Now wash in cold water. Drain the water.

 

Take an almond and press it with your thumb and fore finger. The nut will come out of the skin easily.

 

Peel all the almonds. Place it out in sun light and allow it to dry. You can also dry it in a n oven. Heat the oven to the lowest temperature. Arrange the almonds on a baking tray. Place the tray in the middle shelf. Slightly open the oven door and let the almonds dry in that heat. This is to ensure that the almonds doesn’t get roasted. You can store this in fridge and use it up in desserts and decorations.

 

 

 

For the meal, grind the peeled and dried almonds in a mixer grinder. Do not run the mixer on high speed because it will extract the oil from almonds and the meal will become clumpy. Run in short intervals until the almond is of fine grainy texture. Use it in cakes and bakes or store in refrigerator for further use.