Ok so making your own homemade nut milk, is not really about milking a nut, although I find that phrase funny as if nuts have some sort of udders! Basically, nuts are soaked in water to slightly fill out and soften then whizzed up to create this creamy dairy free alternative to milk – it’s a fun project to try and my kids loved helping.
It turns out the longer your leave the nuts the better, up to 48 hours apparently and this will leave you with creamier milk the longer you do it but overnight is as a minimum I would recommened. I don’t think having the shells on is essential so unlike the video, avoid this step as you only take them off.
So pick the nuts you want, you can use any type including cashews, macadamias etc I went for hazelnuts, peanuts (unsalted) and almonds. Grab a bowl of cold water and let the nuts soak in them overnight ensuring they are fully submerged. The next morning (or if you are leaving them longer, when you are ready) you should notice the nuts are a little larger, drain off and remove the skins if still on.
Pour the nuts and fresh cold water (500ml for every 200g of nuts) into a blender and whizz away until smooth. At first this may look a little too smooth but check out this next step…. carefully pour the whizzed fluid through a muslin cloth lifting it as you go to catch the fluid into a bowl and you’ll notice there are bits of nuts left that the cloth is catching, keep going and squeeze out all the excess fluid. You are left with a nut flour – eg if you used almonds, that is an actual almond flour to be re-used that costs a lot in shops – cool huh?!
The strained fluid is your nut milk, it’ll keep for a couple of days! How cool is that?! good luck!