So this is one of those fluke recipes I just made up from remnants that I felt bad tossing out. But it works!
After my thadal making venture I had all this pulp leftover from straining the almonds and spices. I hate throwing away perfectly good food. And throwing out all this perfectly good spiced almond pulp bothered me. So I thought: I would try to turn this into a savoury almond biscuit type thing that we could just eat with our thadal or with tea.
And voila it worked! You just need to dry out the pulp in the oven on low heat (about 200F) for about 20 minutes, basically turning almond pulp into almond meal. Then this almond meal can be used to make these easy almond crackers. You can even make them totally gluten free if you use gluten free flour instead of all purpose flour!
This is also a great way to use up almond pulp if you make regular old almond milk. The flavours will be a bit different, since you wont have as much of the spice flavour from the thadal pulp. But it still tastes great! Try adding a bit of rosemary to the dough and a sprinkle of sea salt on top to make an almost saltine like cracker. Soooo addictive!
We ate the whole batch in one day! Not bad for something that was just going to get tossed eh?
Spiced Almond Crackers
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond meal (see recipe notes below if using the almond pulp from making almond milk or thadal)
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour (sub gluten free baking flour if you want to keep this gf!)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- pinch saffron (optional)
- 3.5 tbsp oil (canola or avocado oil recommended)
- 3-5 tbsp water
Instructions
- Mix together all the dry ingredients (everything except the oil and water) in a large bowl, and blend together well. You can use a food processor if you like, but I just did it with a spatula by hand.
- When it starts to look well incorporated, add the oil and mix well.
- Add the water 1 tbsp at a time till the mixture comes together into a ball and is not crumbly anymore. The amount of water will change depending on how dry your almond meal is, so go slowly. I found that 2 to 3 tbsp of water is what I needed most times I made this. The dough should be moldable and not fall apart when you handle it.
- Place a sheet of parchment (or a silicone mat) on your counter and place the ball of dough onto the centre of the parchment. Place another parchment sheet on top and roll out till about 1/4 inch thick (about 6 mm).
- Cut into squares with a knife (or use a cookie cutter to make cute shapes if you like).
- Place the parchment paper with your cut shapes carefully onto your cookie sheet and place the whole thing in the freezer for about 10 minutes to let them firm up.
- Preheat oven to 325F (165C).
- When the oven is heated, remove the cookie sheet with the cookies from the freezer and spread out the cookies on the sheet so they have a bit of space between them. I find I need to get a second cookie sheet to fit all of them with a bit of room. If you like you can sprinkle a bit of sea salt on each one for an extra flavour enhancer.
- Bake for 15-23 minutes till firm. They will not change colour much, but you might see a bit of browning around the edges.
- Allow to cool before handling as they are a bit delicate when warm.
