Orgeat

[AAQuesada]

Apollonia Poilane has a recipe for Orgeat that i've been curious to try (in the newish Poilane book) -it seems different in that she uses Barley as well as almonds, saying that 'Orge' in French means barley. In any case I haven't made the recipe yet but I thought I'd throw it out there as another option. IIRC she made it on one of David Lebovitz's Instagram live videos as well.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Very few days of @feste's left.  Situation critical.  I plan to attempt my first batch of orgeat tomorrow.  Another question:  how important is the alcohol?  I can't quite believe a small concentration of alcohol would preserve much of anything.  Shelf life isn't too important as I go through half a liter of orgeat a month.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I made orgeat from almond milk processed in my Kuvings...

 

 

 

Per a Kuvings recipe I used 180g nuts and 250 ml water.  For this batch I used half almonds and half apricot kernels.  The almonds were relatively easy to skin.  The apricots less so.  Took about an hour from my life.

 

Putting the nuts through the Kuvings was easy.  Yield of milk was 300g.  However I still had to strain the milk through my Matfer chinois (which was nice because in two and a half years this was only the second time I'd found a use for it).  There was not much residue.

 

To make orgeat I sweetened the milk with 250g sugar and flavored with 10 ml orange flower water.  The almond flavor is pronounced.  I did not add alcohol.

 

 

[Craig E]

On 12/5/2020 at 8:03 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Very few days of @feste's left.  Situation critical.  I plan to attempt my first batch of orgeat tomorrow.  Another question:  how important is the alcohol?  I can't quite believe a small concentration of alcohol would preserve much of anything.  Shelf life isn't too important as I go through half a liter of orgeat a month.

 

If you're plowing through it at that pace I'd guess the bottle would be empty before incremental period gained through preservative even starts.

[Craig E]

22 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

For this batch I used half almonds and half apricot kernels. 

 

Are you assured that cyanide won't be an issue?

[JoNorvelleWalker]

17 minutes ago, Craig E said:

Are you assured that cyanide won't be an issue?

 

No.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

But how does my homemade orgeat compare with @feste's?  I hear you ask.  Comparing orgeats side by side as a public service:

 

My orgeat is thicker, maybe too thick to be practical in drinks.  Taste and mouthfeel is richer than @feste's.  My orgeat has noticeable marzipan benzaldehyde notes, @feste's does not.  But @feste's has a pleasant floral overtone, I assume from orange flower water.  Mine does not.  Yet I added orange flower water to my orgeat, I really did.  @feste's also has a less pleasant chemical aftertaste, I assume from the alcohol added as a preservative.  Thankfully my orgeat does not.

 

In the glass my mai tai is opaque and more like cow's milk.  Not a bad thing, just different.  If I had to choose an orgeat I'd take my own.  I believe my orgeat would be lovely on ice cream.

 

On a cost basis @feste's orgeat is about three times as expensive, not accounting for my labor.

 

Lastly, at the moment my orgeat is available.  @feste's orgeat is not.

 

 

[FrogPrincesse]

On 12/5/2020 at 6:03 PM, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Another question:  how important is the alcohol?  I can't quite believe a small concentration of alcohol would preserve much of anything.  Shelf life isn't too important as I go through half a liter of orgeat a month.

 

Without alcohol it will keep for 1 month at best, refrigerated. If you add alcohol, you will increase shelf life quite a bit. I have been able to keep my orgeat for several months without degradation. 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On 12/10/2020 at 6:28 PM, FrogPrincesse said:

Without alcohol it will keep for 1 month at best, refrigerated. If you add alcohol, you will increase shelf life quite a bit. I have been able to keep my orgeat for several months without degradation. 

 

I have not been able to keep my orgeat for several months.  This batch lasted 23 days.  Not that I have anything against alcohol.

 

[Craig E]

That mold never stood a chance.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

On 12/30/2020 at 2:58 AM, Craig E said:

That mold never stood a chance.

 

Cyanide gets them too.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Time to wring out this wretched year with a fresh batch of orgeat.  I kept the same 180g of nuts, but rather used 1/3 apricot to 2/3's almonds, instead of half and half.  I increased the water to 300ml from 250.  And I decreased the sugar to 200g down from 250.  Now the viscosity is about the same as the viscosity of @feste's orgeat.

 

I also changed the production methods based on an idea from discountjuicers.com.  Rather than passing the nuts directly through the Kuvings juicer, I first blended the nuts with water in my new Blendtec.  The Kuvings effluent looked more milk-like, might I say creamlike.  Then I filtered further in a little nut milk bag.  I may or may not report on the results tonight.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Gets the job done.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Quite pleased with my latest orgeat effort.  Not as marzipany thick nor as sweet as the prior batch.  Yet it tastes richer, creamier.  Envision a mai tai Alexander.

 

One thing I cannot comprehend:  overnight @feste's orgeat separates into two phases.  My orgeat so far does not.  At least not in any timeframe that it takes for me to finish off a recipe, nor for the sun to supernova.

 

But now I am out of orange blossom water.  Not in itself an end of the world catastrophe, however I am wringing my hands waiting for The Spice House to have another sale.  The last orange blossom water I bought from CIA was tasteless.

 

[teonzo]

9 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

But now I am out of orange blossom water.  Not in itself an end of the world catastrophe, however I am wringing my hands waiting for The Spice House to have another sale.  The last orange blossom water I bought from CIA was tasteless.

 

I would suggest to buy neroli essential oil instead of orange blossom water. Better taste, less expensive overall (a drop goes a long way). Be careful as with all essential oils (always dilute, never ingest pure).

 

 

 

Teo

 

[jimb0]

my so has been wanting some orgeat and was talking about buying a bottle of the torani so i was like ehhhh i'll just make it. so that's what i did today. left the skins on, but used all almonds, no apricots. we don't drink vodka so it isn't something i keep on hand; instead i used some rum. smells amazing. i turned the leftover ground almonds into cookies.

 

i'm not sure i agree about buying neroli oil unless you really seriously use a lot of orange blossom water. personally i go through less than a bottle of orange blossom water a year, and that costs $2.50 cad. whereas 5mL of neroli oil is around $70 cad (and if you're paying less than that it's very likely a carrier blended or nature identical oil). 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Time for another batch (batch 3 if anyone is keeping count).  I kept to 120g almonds and 60g apricot kernels.  I did not skin the apricots.  Doing so is an exercise in frustration.  I used the same 300ml water and 200g sugar.  Unfortunately the sugar was not refined.  That was not intentional but it was the sugar that I had.  Given that most of my orgeat is going into rum I hardly think it matters.  No orange blossom water.

 

One difference:  last time as I heated the almond milk the fat clumped.  The fat clumped again today.  However this time I homogenized the orgeat while still warm, as I would an ice cream base.  I'm not sure anyone has an homogenizer here besides Kerry, but it made an incredible difference in the texture.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Batch 4 was made tonight.  Again 120g almonds and 60g apricot kernels.  I increased the water to 350ml and the sugar to 300g.  This time I did not heat the almond milk and sugar to the point at which the emulsion broke, so there was no need to homogenize.  However I expect the orgeat will separate on sitting.  The homogenized orgeat did not.

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by JoNorvelleWalker (log)

[Craig E]

I'm in the middle of collecting pits for avocado pit orgeat. Have any of y'all tried that?

[jimb0]

On 2/15/2021 at 4:41 PM, Craig E said:

I'm in the middle of collecting pits for avocado pit orgeat. Have any of y'all tried that?

 

no but it's deffo on my list now

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Batch 5:  Again 120g almonds and 60g apricot kernels, 350g water.  Decreased sugar to 250g.  I'm thinking it would be much more practical to make a double or triple recipe.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Batch 6, double batch.  Begun around 3:00pm, finished about midnight.

 

240g almonds

120g apricot kernels

600g water

500g sugar

50ml orange flower water

 

Some notes:  recipe was about at the capacity of my largest blender jar.  The nut slurry was more like a paste and  it processed poorly in the Kuvings.  No problem with the quality of the effluent, however the yield was not what it possibly could have been.  Cleaning the crevices of the Kuvings was not fun.

 

I heated the resulting almond milk with sugar to 103C or thereabouts.  After it cooled a bit I homogenized the mix and went off to enjoy a much needed shampoo.  When I returned from my ablutions there was a thick raft of congealed fat over a still warm liquid phase.  Pretty gross.

 

Now that the mix was somewhat cooler I re-homogenized it to oblivion.  This time it looks like the orgeat will stay homogenized.  Forever or until next month, whichever comes sooner.

 

As much as I prefer my own orgeat I can see how @feste has a business model.

 

 

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Batch 7...

 

90g almonds (blanched Spanish almonds this time)

90g apricot kernels

400ml water

300g sugar

20ml orange flower water

 

This was a single batch.  Easier for me to work with, even if I may have to perform the work more often.  I blended the nuts with 350ml of the water only enough to break up the kernels, not enough to form a thick slurry.  After running the nut/water mixture through the Kuvings juicer I added the additional 50ml of water to the pulp, and ran the pulp through the Kuvings a second time.  Filtered through muslin and chinois.

 

Last batch I cooked the almond milk and sugar to a thicker consistency than I intended.  This time I used my Paragon induction mat so that I could control the temperature.  After the sugar had dissolved and the solution had cooled down, I homogenized as usual, adding the orange flower water at the end.  One step that helped:  I filtered the almond milk into a hotel pan.  I used the same hotel pan for cooking the sugar solution and for homogenizing. Much less mess.

 

The batch did not fit in the jar.  Oops.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Tasty.  So far no phase separation.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

For giggles I increased the proportion of orgeat and Cointreau in tonight's mai tai to what I've seen used by others earlier in the thread.  Certainly more almondy and orangey.  Sweet, but not really too sweet.

 

But I'm about to run out of orgeat and Cointreau, and I hope the orgeat lasts until the weekend.

 

As a public service announcement I note @feste is again selling orgeat from her website, as opposed to amazon.  As good as @feste's orgeat is I am not ashamed to say I like mine better.  I love that homemade orgeat does not separate, whereas @feste's orgeat does.

 

Here is a question for all orgeat lovers here:  we are now into cherry season.  Thanks to amazon I just obtained a bag of Rainer cherries.  Would ground up cherry pits be a positive addition to orgeat?