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If you enjoy baking with almond flour as much as I do, you might find yourself in a situation where you want or need to make it at home. It could save you an extra trip to the grocery store or help you use up some extra almonds in your pantry!
Making homemade almond flour is easy, but I’ve recently discovered a new trick for achieving a texture more similar to the finely ground store-bought variety. (Hint: It involves the fine mesh strainer I use almost every day.)
I’ll also show you how to use almond flour as a substitute for all-purpose flour, along with a few trusted recipes to help you get started.
Ingredients for Almond Flour
The only ingredient in almond flour is, not surprisingly, almonds.
- Blanched Almonds. When you buy almond flour at the store, it’s likely made with blanched almonds, which means their skins have been removed first. Using blanched almonds will yield a finely ground flour that produces fluffier cakes and muffins, as well as cookies with a more buttery texture. Blanched almond flour, in general, will give you the best results in baking.
- Whole Almonds. If you use whole almonds to make flour, you’ll be making almond meal instead. Almond meal produces baked goods that are softer and more moist, so the results will be different than using blanched almonds.
How to Make Almond Flour
Step 1:
In a food processor or high-speed blender, add 8 ounces of almonds. This is about 1 1/2 cups of whole almonds if you don’t own a food scale, and will produce about 2 cups of almond flour when you’re done processing it. (Because it gets fluffier.)
Secure the lid and process for about 30 seconds. Stop and scrape down the sides of the machine, then pulse the almonds again.
After about 60 seconds, the almonds should appear finely ground.
Step 2:
No matter which machine you use, you’ll likely have a few almond pieces that were missed. You can filter these out by pouring the flour through a fine mesh strainer arranged over a large bowl.
Shake the strainer, like you’re sifting the flour, until only larger chunks of almonds are left in the strainer. In the bowl below, you should have finely ground almond flour, ready to use in recipes.
You can return the larger almond pieces to the machine and attempt to process them again, or just save them separately to add to a recipe when you want a little added texture. (Such as salads, quick breads, or granola.)
Almond Meal vs. Almond Flour
If a recipe calls for almond flour, it’s likely assuming that you’re using blanched almond flour, meaning the skins were removed from the almonds before they were ground finely.
Almond meal is another popular option made from whole almonds that have been finely ground. You can make this at home using the same method described above.
The main difference is that it’s not as easy to strain this variation. (Most of the almond meal would not fall through my fine mesh strainer, so I couldn’t make it as “fine” in texture as the blanched almond flour.
When using almond meal instead of almond flour, you may find that baked goods turn out denser and moister, rather than buttery, fluffy, or crisp around the edges.
How to Substitute Almond Flour for Regular Flour
Unfortunately, almond flour is not a 1:1 swap for all-purpose flour. This is likely because it contains more fat than grain-based flours.
I experimented with chocolate chip cookies and found that I needed to nearly double the flour a recipe called for when using almond flour. Therefore, it may be a safer bet to double the flour when using almond flour instead of all-purpose flour.
With that being said, it’s a better idea to look for a recipe that’s already been tested with almond flour. That way, there’s no guesswork for you!
Recipes for Almond Flour
Try one of these popular options to get started:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Almond Flour Brownies
- Fluffy Almond Flour Cake
- Chocolate Almond Flour Cupcakes
- Almond Flour Pancakes
Ingredients
- 8 ounces blanched almonds , whole or slivered
Instructions
- Place the blanched almonds in a high-speed blender or food processor, and process until they are finely ground. If using a high-speed blender, be sure not to over-process as the almonds will eventually start to release their oils and become almond butter.
- For best results, do not blend more than 8 ounces of almonds at a time. (I tried using 16 ounces and couldn’t get them evenly ground.) For the most finely-ground results, I’ve found a blender works best, but the flour I made in the food processor also works for making almond flour recipes– the final product is just slightly grainier.
- For fine almond flour, pour the processed almonds into a fine mesh strainer arranged over a large bowl. Shake the strainer to sift the flour through the mesh. This will catch any large pieces the processing might have missed, leaving you with finely ground flour in the bowl. This flour is ready to use right away in your favorite almond flour recipes.
Notes
Nutrition
If you try this almond flour recipe, please leave a comment and star rating below to let me know how you like it.
I love how simple this is to make.
Walmart has a 2 lb bag of Blanched Superfine Almond Flour for 10.98 or 0.35/oz. You might have to blend it a bit more to get the actual superfine texture but its the cheapest so far I’ve found anywhere.
Dear Megan, I think that the reason the blanched almonds are preferred over the plain almonds is because much of the lectin resides in the skin and you want to eliminate as much of the lectin as you can! Thank you for the idea! I am going on a web search for blanched almonds now!
Chuck
I learned how to make almond flour by first soaking my almonds and making almond milk and then drying the almond meal that is left. It has a huge taste difference then store bought almond flour and I cannot figure out why!!! By processing the almonds the way you said I ended up with almond butter – pouts I am so frustrated and welcome any feedback
The fat is removed when you make almond milk, so the pulp that is leftover isn’t idea for making recipes that call for true almond flour. (Simply ground blanched almonds.) If you wind up with almond butter, that means the almonds were processed for too long. But, you can bake with almond butter, too! Check out my almond butter blondies or cookies. 🙂
I just used buckwheat groans to make buckwheat flour (used a coffee grinder and it worked perfectly). May I know if
It’s possible to grind almond meal into flour? I’ve got it and thought I could use it?
Thanks
Glad I found this info!! I wanted to try a recipe for a peach crumb cake that calls for a 1/2 cup of almond flour. I went to get the ingredients but didn’t want to spend $8 or $9 for a bag of the flour when I only need 1/2 cup. I’ll happily get the blanched almonds at Trader Joe’s and make the cake!! Thanks.
I hv almond flour(AF) but recipe(pumpkin bread, Keto) calls for fine AF. How do I make it w the Reg. I already hv? When I use up what I hv I’ll make from nuts.
I would just try it with what you have and see how it turns out!
I recently went to Costco for the first time and got a 3 lbs bag of Almond Flour for $11.00 that comes out to $0.22 per ounce
Thank you for so much information!
Thanks to all of you for your in site on making your own flours. I am just getting into all of this . Looking forward to making yummy things that are healthy !