Almond Flour

I found this almond flour in the cabinet and had no idea what it was for.  My mom says that it makes things moister.  Turns out, it’s a little more complicated than that.  According to the King Arthur Flour blog, almond flour does different things to different foods.

For example, almond flour makes non-yeasted batters/doughs rise a bit more and become more tender.  Pancakes are a good example because they are mainly supposed to be tender and moist.  For cookies, almond flour makes them spread more and therefore be more crisp and thin.  For baked doughnuts or muffins, almond flour keeps the goods moist for up to 3 days.  They also brown better because of the fat in the almonds.

With this in mind, I tried a macaron recipe, which uses almond flour.  The macarons turned out great, but they were a little flat.  I think I mixed the batter too much when I folded the almond flour in.  Almond flour does make certain batters airier, but you still need to mind the air bubbles already in the batter.  In this case, I probably deflated the air bubbles from the meringue I had folded the almond flour into.

Almond flour can be used for many things.  It adds texture, flavor and even, in some cases, air.  Just mind the usage.