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Frothing Almond Milk: This is How It Works

Unlike soy milk, for example, almond milk does not froth well. But with a few tricks or special barista versions, it still works. We will explain to you what is important when it comes to almond milk foam.

Almond milk is particularly popular among allergy sufferers because it is free of lactose, soy protein, milk protein and gluten. However, due to the cultivation of almonds, almond milk is not the most environmentally friendly milk alternative. Because of the taste, many still use almond milk. The problem: it usually doesn’t foam well because it lacks enough fat and protein.

There are now special barista versions of almond milk on the market that are suitable for frothing. We present selected products to you. We will also explain how you can make your own almond milk and how you can use a few ingredients to make it a barista edition.

Froth almond milk – you can do it with special products

In general, normal almond milk is not well suited for “latte-style” coffee: either it cannot be frothed at all or it forms unpleasant flakes in the coffee.

In the meantime, however, the trade has followed suit and offers some barista versions of almond milk that are especially suitable for frothing. However, most of these products contain additives and are not available in organic quality:

For example, there is Joya’s barista almond milk, which contains maltodextrin, the stabilizer gellan and lecithins as well as dipotassium phosphate as an acid regulator.
Alpro also has a barista almond milk in its range, but it also contains other additives: In addition to sugar, fructose, acidity regulators and the stabilizers gellan and guar gum, it also contains flavors.
EcoMil’s barista almond milk is available in organic quality and with higher-quality ingredients: it contains cane sugar, tapioca starch, sunflower oil, pea protein, natural vanilla flavoring and the stabilizer gellan gum.
The fact that Barista almond milk products require so many additives shows that “normal” almond milk is otherwise difficult to froth. With a good milk frother, you can also achieve good results with the spelled-almond drink from Natumi or the almond drink from Alnatura. Both products contain no unnecessary additives and are available in organic quality.

The most important tip: Only cold almond milk can be frothed at all. Almond milk is best straight from the fridge.

Make barista almond milk yourself: recipe ideas

If you want to froth regular almond milk, a few other ingredients can help. As a basic ingredient, you can either use store-bought organic almond milk or make your own almond milk.

To add more proteins and fats to the almond milk and give it more stability, you can try the following ingredients:

About 50 grams of soaked cashew nuts or a heaping tablespoon of cashew butter in one liter of almond milk give the vegan milk alternative more protein and fat. Then, blend the milk in a high-speed blender and strain it through a nut milk bag. Then the almond milk can be foamed a little better.
Alternatively, you can also add vegetable cooking oil. But it takes quite a lot for that – about 90 milliliters of oil to 1 liter of almond milk. Rapeseed oil or sunflower oil are suitable.
To increase the protein content, you can add a tablespoon of protein powder to the almond milk – preferably in addition to the vegetable oil. Pea protein or hemp protein, for example, are recommended.
Additionally, you can add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of guar gum, locust bean gum, or gellan gum to almond milk as a stabilizer. This makes the almond milk creamier and easier to froth.
Tapioca starch, locust bean gum or psyllium husk powder are suitable natural thickeners.
You can also add lecithin to prevent the frothed almond milk from flaking in the coffee. This emulsifier prevents the individual ingredients from separating from each other. In addition to soy lecithin, you can also use sunflower lecithin.
It is also important that the almond milk is as cool as possible before frothing and that you use a good milk frother (e.g. from Memolife**). With the appropriate ingredients such as cashew butter, oil, protein powder and stabilizer, the almond milk should also be frothed with an ordinary mini milk frother.

Alternatively, you can also switch to another plant-based milk as a milk substitute: soy milk and spelled milk are particularly easy to froth. Oat milk is also available in selected barista editions that use few additives.

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Food

Bitter Almond Flavor: This is the Difference to Bitter Almond Oil

Bitter almond flavoring is a popular flavoring for baking and cooking. The aroma contains no animal ingredients and is therefore also suitable for vegetarian and vegan recipes. But is bitter almond flavoring also recommended?

Bitter almond flavor is one of the typical baking ingredients. It smells and tastes like marzipan, almonds and sugar. The aroma is highly concentrated, so just a few drops are enough. For this reason, bitter almond flavoring is almost always available in small bottles that allow you to accurately measure the flavor on the drops. Bitter almond flavoring is popular as an ingredient in sweet recipes:

Marble cake and other sponge cakes
coconut macaroons
amarettini
nut snails
Recipes with marzipan
jams
But what is the bitter almond flavor made of and how does it differ from bitter almond oil? We explain this in detail in the following sections.

Bitter almond flavor: These ingredients are in the bottle

Bitter almond flavoring is not typically a natural flavoring, but is almost always created in a lab. It consists of two substances:

Benzaldehyde (about 20 percent)
Vegetable oil (about 80 percent)
Benzaldehyde is a clear liquid that is transparent to light yellow. Their smell and taste are reminiscent of bitter almonds and give their name to the bitter almond aroma. Real almonds or rum, on the other hand, are not in the baking aroma. The bottle with the bitter almond flavor does not contain sugar either, so you have to sweeten your recipes yourself.

Benzaldehyde is officially approved as a food additive. In addition, it is often found in perfumes and essential oils and naturally in the pits of peaches and apricots, explains the Federal Environment Agency. According to Stiftung Warentest, it is also found in food as a cherry flavoring substance. It can be produced naturally (“natural aroma”), but is usually produced chemically in the laboratory (“aroma”). In large amounts, benzaldehyde can be toxic, causing damage to the nervous system and respiratory problems. According to Stiftung Warentest, the European Food Safety Authority has classified benzaldehyde in small quantities as non-critical.

Tip: In many cases, you can simply omit bitter almond flavoring. If you still want to use it, pay attention to the addition “natural aroma” and use it sparingly.

Bitter almond flavor or bitter almond oil?

Bitter almond flavoring and bitter almond oil are not identical. The important difference is in the composition:

Bitter almond oil can also be made naturally or artificially. However, it contains highly toxic hydrocyanic acid, while bitter almond flavor does not.
If the hydrocyanic acid is removed from bitter almond oil, the chemical can be used as a fragrance in perfumes and as a flavoring for liqueurs. The bitter almond oil then contains 99 percent benzaldehyde.
Bitter almond oil is also not identical to almond oil. So it cannot be used as a care product for external use.
Note: Untreated bitter almond oil is not commercially available. Bitter almond oil without prussic acid is much less common than bitter almond flavoring and should be used with caution because of the high benzaldehyde content. Bitter almond flavor is easier to use.

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Cooking Tips

Bitter Almonds are Poisonous – So You Can Still Eat Them

Bitter almonds are poisonous when raw due to the hydrocyanic acid. Cooked or baked, however, they are used in many traditional recipes. Here you can find out when you can eat bitter almonds and what to look out for.

Bitter almonds are valued for their intense almond flavor and, despite their toxic effect, are often used as a baking ingredient. This is possible because the toxic substance largely evaporates when heated. In contrast to baking flavors, you get a natural and less dominant bitter almond taste. We’ll show you what you absolutely have to consider when seasoning with bitter almonds.

Bitter Almonds: Inedible when raw

Bitter almonds are closely related to the sweet almonds and like these fruits of the almond tree. Visually, the two subspecies can often hardly be distinguished, with the bitter almond being slightly smaller than the sweet almond. Some bitter specimens can also be found among sweet almonds, which also contain hydrocyanic acid and should not be eaten raw. If you bite into a very bitter almond from a packet of sweet almonds, it’s best to spit it out.

Bitter almonds contain around three to five percent amygdalin, i.e. hydrocyanic acid bound to sugar residues, which is toxic when raw. During digestion, the highly toxic hydrocyanic acid is split off, which can cause serious symptoms of poisoning even in small quantities. In addition to hydrocyanic acid (or hydrogen cyanide), benzaldehyde is also split off. Both substances have the typical bitter almond taste, which is reminiscent of marzipan and is popular in many baking recipes. In contrast to hydrocyanic acid, benzaldehyde is not toxic and is used as a bitter almond aroma (also called false bitter almond oil) for baking.

According to the Lower Saxony State Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety (LAVES), the hydrogen cyanide content of raw bitter almonds is up to 3000 milligrams per kilogram. Depending on body weight, 5 to 10 bitter almonds can be deadly for children. This number is higher for adults, but you should definitely avoid raw bitter almonds. In the trade, the bitter seeds are usually only offered in small packs of 50 grams. You can buy bitter almonds in the health food store or in the pharmacy.

By the way: Bitter apricot kernels also contain amygdalin. Studies by LAVES have shown that their hydrocyanic acid content is comparable to that of bitter almonds. The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) warns against eating more than two apricot kernels a day; tolerance is significantly lower in children. The same applies to raw bitter almonds.

Cooking or baking bitter almonds: this is how you can eat them

Since hydrocyanic acid is very sensitive to heat, it evaporates when cooking or baking and only a very small proportion of the toxic substance remains. You can therefore consume small amounts in heated dishes without hesitation. For example, you can use bitter almonds to flavor pastries, liqueurs or other desserts. Traditionally, bitter almonds are incorporated into Christmas stollen, amaretti and liqueurs, among other things.

You can process bitter almonds by grinding them finely or grating them with the other ingredients like fresh nutmeg with a fine grater. The food must then be heated. Alternatively, you can heat the kernels separately in the oven and use them to refine cold desserts. Depending on how intense the bitter almond taste should be, you can calculate around 5 to 15 grams of bitter almonds per 500 grams of mass. This amount is completely harmless after heating.

Below you will find a recipe for aromatic cantuccini with bitter almonds without artificial flavorings.

Cantuccini with bitter almonds: recipe without artificial baking flavors

Ingredients:

250 g flour
125 gsugar
1 teaspoon Baking powder
0.5 tsp salt
10 g bitter almonds
2organic eggs
20 gorganic butter (soft)
0.5 vanilla bean
200 g almonds
Zest of an organic lemon (optional)

Directions:

Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and mix together.
Finely grind the bitter almonds or use a very fine grater to grate them into the dry ingredients. Mix everything thoroughly.
Add the organic eggs, the softened butter and the pulp of half a vanilla pod (alternatively, you can also use a pinch of homemade vanilla sugar) and knead all the ingredients together. For a special aroma you can add the zest of an organic lemon. Knead in the whole sweet almonds at the end.
Chill the dough for half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 190°C top/bottom heat. In the meantime, divide the dough into five portions, roll them into four centimeter thick strands and place them on a baking tray lined with a baking paper alternative or baking paper. Leave some space between the rolls as the pastries will rise in the oven.
Bake the rolls for about 12 to 15 minutes, let them cool slightly and cut them into slices about 1.5 centimeters wide.
Place them cut-side up on the baking sheet and bake for another 10 minutes until golden brown. Allow the cantuccini to cool completely before packing in an airtight container.

Alternatives to bitter almonds: bitter almond flavor

Due to the toxic hydrogen cyanide, many prefer to use bitter almond flavoring when baking, which tastes the same but does not contain any of the toxic substances found in bitter almonds.

You can also use bitter almond oil, which is obtained from the kernels of bitter almonds, apricots or other stone fruit. Bitter almond oil consists mainly of benzaldehyde, but also contains toxic hydrocyanic acid. Thanks to the intense almond aroma, it is used as a spice oil in food production but also in perfumery. Important: If you want to use bitter almond oil for food, you must heat it up before consumption.

Tip: The oil can be freed from the hydrocyanic acid using special processes. You can therefore also find bitter almond oil free of hydrocyanic acid in stores.

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