Author: Stuart

I was trying the same process of using the Ninja blender and nut bag which produces a smooth liquid, but I grabbed the wrong extract from the drawer and put 2 teaspoons of lemon extract into the horchata.

There’s no recovery from this. I tried adding sugar, banana, more almond milk, but it all tasted of lemon. To say I’m bitter about wasting good ingredients is an under statement.

Needless to say, the lemon extract is placed out of easy access now!

Now where are my glasses…?

I swapped the almond milk from Alpro Almond milk to Rude health.

The almonds were from Grape Tree (toasted whole blanched almonds)

The taste is less sweet as a result and the jury wasn’t as impressed.

I also tried 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon rather than sticks as I initially tried Chinese cinnamon standing in with the rice overnight but before I blended it I tried a bit but it’s far too fiery.

Another change was using the smaller blender on my ninja blender which resulted in a finer liquid with less bits. Using a nut bag also was better than a sieve.

A mixed bag of results. The liquid is finer but not such a good taste as recipe one.

Using the same recipe with some slight tweaks:

I used 50g Tesco Dark Brown sugar and 100g of caster sugar rather than just 150g caster sugar to see how the rich and treacly sweetness affects the recipe.

I bought pre-toasted almond flakes (100g from Tesco) rather than buying blanched almonds and toasting them myself.

I was keen to remove even more bits for a smoother taste.

Let’s see what happened

After straining the horchata twice through a sieve I attempted straining through muslin but the bits blocked it up. After giving up with the muslin I used a fine sieve. The final result was much smoother than the first attempt but for one of the tasters it was still too bitty.

How to make it smoother? That is going to be a challenge!

The taste was great and approved by all.