Nut Milk and Brownies
So, last night I made up 3 batches of nut milks (almond, walnut, cashew)and 3 batches of brownies made with them. There are quite a number of directions for nut milks with the water:nut ratio varying from 2:1 to 4:1. Some say refrigerate for a night before filtering; others say boil in water. Most say use raw nuts. Almond were sweet, not bitter, as cautioned.
I went with the process of running the nuts to a modest grind in the blender, adding 2 cups of boiling water, steeping for 5 minutes, blend high for 40-60 second, then filtering through cheesecloth. I got varying amounts of nut milk depending on the nuts 1.5 cups walnut to 2 cups cashew. I also saved the residue paste. (I am thinking about mixing some of it into curry.)
Basic brownie recipe calls for one box brownie mix (as close as I am getting to scratch for the nonce) mixed with 1/2 oil and 1/4 cup water. I just added 3/4 cup nut milk. However, it seem to absorb faster that I am used to seeing so I added a dollop (that's a technical time for "1/8 cup, but I'm too arrogant to suffer the indignity of actually measuring, which would entail cleaning the measure I keep in the coffee can") of oil.
I just used the milk in the almond batch. Between licking the bowl and eating the crumbs and not really detecting sufficient flavor, I decided to get more experimentally aggressive with the walnuts and cashews. For these batches, I plopped (another technical term!) some of the paste in half the pan and worked it in. Cashew seems to add the strongest flaver.
Net: 6 dozen experimental brownies 2.25"x2.17", half allocated to the poly picnic Saturday and half to my family during sister Suzi's birthday Sunday. Cheaper than buying guinea pigs to try 'em out on anyway, with the added advantage that 4 of the test subjects share a lot of my DNA.
I went with the process of running the nuts to a modest grind in the blender, adding 2 cups of boiling water, steeping for 5 minutes, blend high for 40-60 second, then filtering through cheesecloth. I got varying amounts of nut milk depending on the nuts 1.5 cups walnut to 2 cups cashew. I also saved the residue paste. (I am thinking about mixing some of it into curry.)
Basic brownie recipe calls for one box brownie mix (as close as I am getting to scratch for the nonce) mixed with 1/2 oil and 1/4 cup water. I just added 3/4 cup nut milk. However, it seem to absorb faster that I am used to seeing so I added a dollop (that's a technical time for "1/8 cup, but I'm too arrogant to suffer the indignity of actually measuring, which would entail cleaning the measure I keep in the coffee can") of oil.
I just used the milk in the almond batch. Between licking the bowl and eating the crumbs and not really detecting sufficient flavor, I decided to get more experimentally aggressive with the walnuts and cashews. For these batches, I plopped (another technical term!) some of the paste in half the pan and worked it in. Cashew seems to add the strongest flaver.
Net: 6 dozen experimental brownies 2.25"x2.17", half allocated to the poly picnic Saturday and half to my family during sister Suzi's birthday Sunday. Cheaper than buying guinea pigs to try 'em out on anyway, with the added advantage that 4 of the test subjects share a lot of my DNA.