Help me substitute almond flour?
December 14, 2024 3:20 AM   Subscribe

I need to substitute regular flour for the almond flour in a recipe that calls for ⅔ cup flour and 1 cup almond flour. The recipe also calls for 3 large eggs. (recipe). Do I exchange one-for-one (ie 1 ⅔ cup regular flour)? Do I change the amount of eggs? (Important for this question: I do not want to make my own almond flour this time around. We will be adding some sliced almonds to the recipe. It's not important for this to have a Big almond taste for us.)

Thaaank you! 🥄
posted by taz to Food & Drink (6 answers total)
 
Best answer: Is there a reason you want to convert that specific recipe instead of looking for a similar lemon-blueberry cake recipe that doesn't use almond flour? This one seems similar, as an example.
posted by needs more cowbell at 4:30 AM on December 14, 2024 [7 favorites]


The obvious ingredient to add is almond extract to try to restore the almond flavour. I wouldn't bother because I don't find extract adds the same flavour that real almonds do.

There were 56 grams of fat in the one cup of almond flour. I would consider adding one more tablespoon of butter to replace it.

You will be adding more gluten to the cake which will make it rise more easily. I would suggest reducing the baking powder by 1/4 tsp.

You will lose the nutty texture to the batter. If it were me I would consider replacing it with something mealy, like a tsp of oat bran - but I keep oat bran in the house. You could also use a fine ground whole wheat flour. I suspect you will get a decent, quite similar cake that still has a different texture whether or not you mess around with oat bran or whole wheat flour.

Maybe try the recipe with only the alterations of more white flour, more butter and less baking powder, and if you don't like the result tinker some more for the next go around.
posted by Jane the Brown at 4:51 AM on December 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


It’s definitely not a one-to-one substitution with regular flour, because not only does regular flour have gluten, it also absorbs liquids much differently. This post suggests that if you are using a regular all purpose flour or whole wheat flour, you need half as much as the almond flour. So, 1/2C+2/3C regular flour= 1 and 1/6 C flour in this recipe. I don’t think you’d need to change the amount of baking powder (unless you are a person who can really taste the metallic taste of a little too much baking powder or soda), because you aren’t adding as much extra gluten as if you were swapping the flours 1:1.

That post also recommends that oat flour would be a better substitute. If you have rolled oats and a food processor, that’s easier and faster than making almond flour and may be worth it if you’re not willing to risk it on the all purpose flour. That would be a 1:1 swap, and it would keep things simple.
posted by alligatorpear at 5:50 AM on December 14, 2024 [1 favorite]


When you’re using almond flour in combo with regular flour, the advice is to substitute a portion of the AP flour in it with almond at a ratio of .5 or .75 to 1. So working backwards I would do 1 1/3 all purpose for a total of 2 cups all purpose. (Maybe a little more).

Also going to say that Ottolemghi would not be my first choice for a baking recipe to then modify.
posted by vunder at 8:56 AM on December 14, 2024


Response by poster: Thanks everyone, you've helped a lot! I think I'll take needs more cowbell's advice and switch recipes.
posted by taz at 4:19 PM on December 14, 2024


Response by poster: Here's what I ended up making, and it is lovely, so thanks again! To answer the question about the recipe, I didn't choose this from a search of this type of recipe, it came up in an article I was reading that was a collection of delicious / fast recipes, and it looked great. (but the almond flour was no go, since none of my groceries have it, and it would have taken a trip, and no car, and no food processor, some other related issues.)
posted by taz at 12:08 PM on December 17, 2024 [1 favorite]


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