5/11/2023 0 Comments Almond milk whipped cream recipeAs the almonds soak, they become softer and absorb much of the water. Soak the almonds for at least 6 hours 10-12 is even better. I don’t know if they’re necessarily “food grade” but I soak mine in hot soapy water a few times before use and they do just fine. You can buy these reusable nut milk bags online for like $7-15 each ( at Amazon here) or you can simply go to your local hardware store and buy paint filter bags that cost about $1 each. You’ll need a blender and large pot, which you likely already have, but you also need a fine mesh filter bag to strain the blended almond pulp out of the finished milk. This recipe does require some unique kitchen tools. I don’t fully understand the chemistry of what’s happening, but I did do some very nerdy scientific viscosity experiments that gave me conclusive evidence: unheated almond milk is as thin as water, but heated almond milk remains 50% thicker and more viscous at the same temperatures. evaporating the water to make it thicker), this is certainly not the case because the milk is only heated for a few minutes. And lest you think we’re just reducing the mixture (i.e. By some bizarre chemistry, the particles in the almonds thicken the liquid when exposed to heat. It wasn’t anything I added, like the tea, it couldn’t be the whisking, what about the… heat? Surely, bringing the almond milk to just under a boil couldn’t permanently increase its viscosity, could it? It turns out, that’s exactly what happens. I immediately went back to the kitchen and tried to figure out what I did to cause this thickening. As this began to cool in my mug I noticed something interesting: the liquid was… thick! Not just a little thicker, but as thick as heavy cream. I had just made a fresh batch of watery homemade almond milk and used it to make my afternoon chai tea latte. Then, as is always the case with scientific discoveries that forever change the course of humanity (like this one), it happened completely on accident. I’ve often wondered how to naturally thicken my homemade almond milk without chemical additives, but nothing worked. The debate about carrageenan’s safety aside (it’s not as bad as it seems), your only other option is to follow one of the myriad homemade almond milk recipes online and enjoy your pitcher of watery almond tea. Commercial producers of almond milk are well aware of this problem and add carrageenan (you’ve heard of that recently, haven’t you?) as a gelling agent to increase its viscosity and emulate the mouthfeel of thick, fatty, “viscous” whole milk. ![]() It has the right flavors, but none of the creaminess that we expect from milk. ![]() Almond milk is naturally as thin as water – “almond tea” might be a better term for this beverage. Make sense?Īll this talk about viscosity has everything to do with the fatal flaw of homemade almond milk: it has none. Cream is more viscous than water, and molasses is more viscous than cream. The thicker the liquid, the more “viscous” it is said to be. Viscosity is, of course, the term that refers to the thickness of a liquid. Today’s lesson, students, is all about the science of viscosity.
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