Raw Hazelnut Milk recipe

In America I bought a HUGE bag of hazelnuts (something I can never find in England!) and decided I would use some to make my own (first) nut milk! I thought it was going to be quite hard, but like everything in cooking, it turned out to be pretty simple. I used a juicer to make the milk, but you can also use a blender as well (although the method is a bit different).

Ingredients 

• 120g of raw, whole hazelnuts (pre-soaked overnight) 
• 1 litre of cold water 

Method 1 (with a juicer) 

1. First (if you haven't already done so) soak the hazelnuts overnight. The next morning/ day pour out the water and rinse the hazelnuts in cold, clean water. 
2. Put 1 tbs of hazelnuts in the juicer followed by around 100ml of water. Repeat this step until you have juiced all the hazelnuts. 
3. Get another jug and put it under the juicer spout. In the jug put a nut bag, so that any hazelnut mush gets caught in the next step. 
4. Pour the milk back into the juicer and let it run out into the bag with the nut bag inside it. 
5. Bring out the nut bag to let the milk strain through into the jug, whilst squeezing it to get the milk all out. There should be a little bit of hazelnut mush left in the bag when you finish squeezing. 
6. Store your nut milk in an airtight jug in the fridge and drink within 6 days 

Method 2 (with a blender) 

1. First (if you haven't already done so) soak the hazelnuts overnight. The next morning/ day pour out the water and rinse the hazelnuts in cold, clean water. 
2. Put all the hazelnuts into your blender with the water and blend for around 2 mins on full power
3. While the hazelnut milk is blending prepare a jug with a nut milk bag inside it
4. Pour into the jug (so into the nut milk bag) the contents of the blender. Bring out the nut milk bag from the jug and squeeze it to get ALL the milk out into the jug. Just keep squeezing until the pulp inside the nut milk bag is DRY. 
5. Store your nut milk in an airtight jug in the fridge and drink within 6 days. 

You can use the hazelnut pulp in many different ways. You can dry it out in a dehydrator or oven for around 4 hours on a low heat, blend it up and use it as flour.