The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Almond milk

Felila's picture
Felila

Almond milk

A few days ago, I bought a cardboard container of almond milk at the health food store, as a backup in case I ran out of cow's milk. Unopened, the almond milk doesn't have to be refrigerated. A prescient buy, because just yesterday I ran out of cow's milk. I had almond milk with my granola.

So, when it came time to turn my overnight poolish into bread, I said "Why the heck not?" and used almond milk rather than milk in my slapdash adaptation of Floyd's daily bread, which I think he calls Pain sur poolish. The bread was a real surprise. It had more structure than I usually get: great rise, big holes. Also, very tender, great flavor! I think I'm going to be doing more experimentation with almond milk.

I measure my ingredients, rather than weigh them. My bad. 1 cup KA white ww, 1 cup water, 1/4 teaspoon yeast, mix, overnight. 4 cups dry ingredients, 1 cup wet ingredients, knead in mixer, rise and fold twice, shape into boules, rise, slash, bake at 500 for 5 minutes and 450 for 13-15 minutes.

For these loaves, for dry ingredients I used a mix of oatmeal, KA white WW, and KA white bread flour. For wet ingredients, I used two eggs, some canola oil, and almond milk to fill out the one cup. I try to start out wet and add flour if necessary. However, thanks to the machine kneading, I can work with fairly wet and gloppy dough.

The oatmeal, BTW, was the bottom of the bin before I bought new oats at the health food coop. It had a fair amount of "oatmeal dust", which I didn't want to waste.

 

 

 

Felila's picture
Felila

Along with the dry ingredients, the 2 teaspoons salt and the 1 teaspoon yeast. Just in case anyone looked at my recipe rather than Lloyd's. I suggest using HIS recipe :)

Mini Oven's picture
Mini Oven

Almond milk sounds very interesting.  I've always wondered about nut milks....:)

Marni's picture
Marni

Thanks for the reminder- I've been wanting to try almond milk and see how it works.  I always use rice milk, as I make all my baked goods non-dairy.  I like the results, but since I've never made the bread with milk I don't have a comparison.

Marni

crazyknitter's picture
crazyknitter

OH!! This sounds wonderful!!  I have got to try this!

I like the idea of rice milk too.

pattycakes's picture
pattycakes

Although I don't use soy anymore, for those who do, soymilk makes a fantastic replacement for milk in any recipe. The bread has characteristics similar to those described for almond milk. Tender crumb, good structure, great flavor.

Patricia

Felila's picture
Felila

I'm wondering if the efficacious ingredients here aren't just the almonds, rice, or soy, but also the stuff they put in these drinks to give them the right texture. The almond milk has:

tapioca, calcium carbonate, sea salt, potassium citrate, carrageenan, soy lecithin

and some flavorings and vitamins, which are probably there in quantities too small to affect the bread.

I would think that ingredients like tapioca, carrageenan, and lecithin might affect the bread structure. But I can't be sure without a lot of chemical analysis and experimentation, which I'm not going to do :)

ivyb's picture
ivyb

Hi, I use these interchangeably, especially for my Amish Starter, as my oldest daughter has a lactose intolerance.  You may have to tweak the ingredients a bit sometimes, but it is a good substitute and works well.  Great breads and cakes can be made, and it keeps the Pareve angle open for those with kasruth dietary restraints as well. :-D

Peace,

Ivy, ny