Ingredient: Almond Flour

French macarons, Italian amaretti and the Bakewell tart all have one thing in common: almond flour. It feels like something that arrived with the gluten-free aisle, but it’s been a staple of European baking for centuries.

Almond flour is just blanched almonds ground fine. Don’t confuse it with almond meal, which is coarser and made from unblanched almonds with the brown skins still on. The difference matters, especially in baking where you want a smooth, pale result.

Nutritionally, it’s genuinely good. You get plenty of vitamin E and magnesium, healthy monounsaturated fats, and it has a much gentler effect on your blood sugar than regular wheat flour. It’s naturally low in carbs, which is why it crops up so often in low-carb recipes.

A word of warning though: you can’t just swap it in for wheat flour and hope for the best. There’s no gluten in it, so your bakes will come out heavier and more squidgy. That may be exactly what you want, but try to follow recipes written specifically for almond flour rather than improvising. It’s also not cheap, so treat it as an ingredient with a job to do rather than an everyday staple. Brilliant in cakes, tart bases and biscuits.

Recipes with Almond Flour…