Post #335992 by Scottes on Tue, Oct 2, 2007 7:37 AM

Another tip or two from what I learned last night...

The amount of water you use when soaking the crushed almond is somewhat important if you have 1 bottle and want maximum almond flavor. If you want 750ml of orgeat, I'd use about 600ml of water if you use the nylon bags and squeeze like heck, or 650ml if you wimpily strain and lose some water left in the almond mash. When you add sugar you'll come back up to the level needed to fill a bottle. (I'm estimating the numbers here a little bit.)

I didn't measure when I soaked and used too much water. I'd rather have a stronger almond taste rather than some left over, so I then put the almond milk on the stove and tried to reduce it by simmering. It didn't reduce, and it did change color since it cooks easily and it ended up the color of a demerara simple syrup. Of course, the taste is off a bit. While I like this taste - it's now an interesting simple syrup - I don't consider it a real orgeat and I plan to do another batch.

Darcy O'Neill at the Art Of Drink recommends 500mg of almonds & 800ml of water. My recommendation - since I like the strong almond taste - is 750mg of almonds and 700ml of water. Darcy's is probably more authentic but I just like the extra almond boost. You could add some high-quality almond extract to boost the almond taste but the taste of orgeat is not quite the same as almond extract. The orgeat is a heck of a lot more interesting.

Oh, and since I mentioned Darcy's recipe let me say that I would never, ever use "table sugar" as he recommends. It's so highly refined that it's just sweet and blech. Do yourself a favor and use sugar from evaporated cane juice. If you don't have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods or some other organic market around, then check your local StupidMarket for the Domino brand stuff.

Lastly, I don't know if it's mentioned above but be sure to separate the layers of Almond Milk before adding the sugar!