Almond flour

sweet almond used to prepare almond flour by carefully grinding the kernels. Flour is used mainly for culinary purposes. It is added when baking confectionery and desserts, as well as in sauces, first and second courses.

• Ground almond kernels contain all the nutritional and medicinal qualities of whole almonds.
• Thanks to this flour, the consistency of many dishes can be made thicker.
• Gives food a nutty smell and taste.
• Products with such flour can be prepared very quickly, since, in fact, this flour (nut powder) is a finished product.
• Baking with almond flour will never come out dry, due to the ability of almonds to retain liquid.
• Does not contain gluten, a substance that can cause allergies.

Almond flour contains 602 kilocalories per 100 g. Of these:

• Proteins - 25.86 grams, which is 103 kcal.
• Fat - 54.55 grams, which is 491 kcal.
• Carbohydrates - 3.02 grams, which is equal to 12 kcal.

• A pack of almond flour usually contains 500 grams of flour.
• One 250 ml glass contains 170 grams.
• 1 tablespoon of flour equals 32 grams of flour.
• A teaspoon contains 12 grams of almond flour.

You can make your own almond flour at home, but there are some difficulties in this process. Firstly, it is very difficult to get a homogeneous powdered form on your own, and secondly, if you overexpose the flour in a combine or blender, then soon it will begin to moisten and can turn into a thick oil. For these reasons, it is easier to buy almond flour in the store.

Almond flour can be purchased in stores and online. The average price for 1 kg of flour in Moscow and the Moscow region is 640 rubles.

Made with almond flour:

• Nut toppings.
• Sand-nut and protein-nut semi-finished products.
• Various dough - for pies, muffins and cakes.
• Edible decorative decorations for dishes.
• Almond cream - This cream is added, for example, when preparing tartlets and buns.
• Sauces and soups - Popular in Mediterranean cuisine.

Macaroons (macaroni) are the famous small round-shaped cakes based on almond flour. To prepare them you need:

• Mix 50 grams of almond flour with 50 grams of powdered sugar.
• Sift the mixture through a medium sieve directly onto the baking sheet.
• Dry the flour mixture in the oven at 150 degrees for five minutes. Cool the mixture.
• Sift again and add half the egg white.
• Take a pan and pour 50 grams of sugar.
• Pour sugar with 15 grams of water and boil the syrup to a temperature of 110 degrees.
• Beat half the egg white and pour into the syrup in a thin stream, without removing from heat.
• Beat until the mixture reaches 50 degrees temperature.
• Add food coloring and 1 tbsp to the almond mixture. a spoonful of syrup (Italian meringue).
• Mix lightly.
• Add the rest of the meringue and mix thoroughly.
• Do not knead the dough for a long time so that the circle does not spread.

Transfer the dough into a pastry bag.

Preheat oven to 150 degrees.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and cut out 3cm circles of dough. In this case, you can use stencils. Leave the baking sheet with the circles at room temperature for 20-25 minutes.

When a thin film appears on the circles that does not stick to your fingers, put the baking sheet in the oven and bake for 13-14 minutes.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and drag the paper from the baking sheet to another surface. Allow the halves to cool, and then remove from the parchment.

Mix 40 grams of chocolate with 40 grams of 33% cream. Melt the chocolate and cream in a water bath or microwave. Crush 3-4 cocoa beans. Add to stuffing. Spread the filling with a pastry bag on the round halves.

Top with "empty" halves and connect the cakes.

Send to refrigerator for 24 hours.

Remove the dessert from the refrigerator half an hour before serving so that the cookies are not cold and the filling is hard.

For the simplest recipe for making macarons, see the following video.

Marzipan is an ancient confection. They say that it appeared during the famine, when there was nothing to make bread from except almonds. It is loved and prepared in many European countries. There are two ways to prepare marzipan:

• cold;
• hot.

The cold method involves grinding all the ingredients and combining them. Use powdered sugar instead of sugar.

The hot method involves making sugar syrup and then combining with ground almonds and the rest of the ingredients.

The main ingredients of marzipan are bitter and sweet almonds and sugar. However, today many variations of the marzipan recipe have been invented. Some of them are kept secret, some are available to everyone. Below are two simple marzipan recipes.

Peel 200 grams of sweet and 2 pieces of bitter almonds. Dry in the oven and grind into flour. Combine 200 grams of powdered sugar, 1 egg white, 5-6 drops of lemon juice, 2 drops of almond essence and a little food coloring. Stir the mixture with ground almonds. Prepare 2 plates 3 cm thick. Wrap in foil and leave for a couple of days.

Peel 1 cup almonds. Dry in the oven and grind thoroughly. Pour 1 cup sugar with 1/4 cup water and make syrup. Put the almonds into the syrup and heat, stirring, for four or five minutes. Then add some almond essence and food coloring.

Tape the desired shape. You can make sweets, decorative decorations for cakes and many other figures (animals, fruits, flowers, etc.) from this dough.

Mix 300 g flour with 200 g butter. Add sugar, soda (quenched with vinegar), chicken eggs, a little salt and 200 g of crushed marzipan. Knead the dough and refrigerate. After 1 hour you can cook cookies.Finished cookies, if desired, cover with chocolate, or berry or fruit jam.

Cookies consist of two parts: dough and filling. For the dough you need 500 g flour, 100 g cocoa powder, 250 g butter, 2 eggs, 100 g milk, 200 g sugar and salt. Prepare the dough and refrigerate for an hour.

Prepare the filling from 300 g of almonds, 100 g of flour, 50 g of sugar, 1 egg, 150 g of butter and half a teaspoon of salt. Combine everything and mix thoroughly.

Roll out the dough on one sheet of cooking paper and the filling on the other. Make one side of the filling 3 cm smaller. Put the filling on the dough and roll into a roll. Put in the freezer. After 1 hour, take the roll out of the freezer and cut it into circles one centimeter thick. Place in the oven at 180°C and bake for 20 minutes.

Grind 120 g of almonds with 3 tablespoons of sugar in a blender. Mix the resulting powder with 80 g of flour and 0.5 tsp. ground cinnamon, 0.5 tsp ground ginger, 0.5 tsp ground cloves, 0.25 h.d. ground anise seeds, 0.25 tsp ground fennel seeds. Mix 3 eggs with 1 cup sugar. Beat the egg and sugar in a water bath for 4 minutes. Remove from heat and add salt. Beat some more time. Soften the butter and gradually add the egg and almond mixture. Bake the resulting dough in the oven for 30-35 minutes, covered with parchment at a temperature of 180 ° C.

To prepare the glaze, beat 125 g butter with 125 g sugar. Add 0.5 tsp. almond extract. While whisking, add 125 warm milk. Top the chilled cake with icing. Put in the refrigerator for 8 hours.The pie can be garnished with roasted almonds and candied ginger slices.

To make almond flour, you will need some almonds. First, peel the nuts from the skin, scalding it first with an ode. Then dry in an oven at 100 degrees Celsius. After that, put the dried nut in a coffee grinder or other grinding tool. Grind the almonds for no more than 15 minutes, otherwise it will turn into almond paste.

For detailed instructions on how to make almond flour, see the following video.

Despite the fact that almond flour contains more calories than other types of flour, including wheat, many dietitians for losing weight advise cooking with it.