Pancakes (and Almond Milk) | Brownies and Zucchini

Pancakes {and Almond Milk}

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Kelly

Full Disclosure: I was sent the Almond Breeze almond milk for free through the Blue Diamond Tastemakers program. I am not being compensated for this post, and as always, the opinions are completely my own.

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from the nice people at Blue Diamond asking if I wanted to try their Unseweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze almond milk. Since I have been home with the baby, I have been in a bit of a food rut. Not everything that I’ve been eating is bad – in fact, I feel like I have some good healthy snacks in the rotation right now – but I felt like this opportunity might be just what I needed to add something new to the mix. I actually haven’t ever tried almond milk before, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to try something new as well.

I know that a lot of people enjoy almond milk in their coffee, and in smoothies. I have plans to try doing this, but for now I decided to use it in a recipe. I just used the generic recipe from the Bisquick box and replaced the regular milk for almond milk. (I actually always add more milk than what the recipe calls for because I like my pancakes a little bit thinner than their recipe.) I couldn’t’ really tell the difference between using almond milk and the normal cows milk that I use. The texture of the pancakes was the same, and the flavor was the same as well.

I did also try some almond milk plain as well, just to see the difference from cows milk. The flavor and texture was definitely different, it has a different flavor and is a bit thicker. I did not enjoy the flavor plain but it wasn’t strong enough that it would change the flavor of a smoothie or cereal if I used it that way. I actually rarely every drink cow’s milk plain as it is….unless I’m dunking Oreo’s in it… so I can’t say that I love the flavor of cows milk just on its own either.

There are a couple of things that I definitely do enjoy about the almond milk. It is a nice non-dairy alternative milk. I’m not anti-dairy by any means (I <3 cheese) but sometimes it’s nice to have an alternative that is easy to substitute. I also really enjoy that you can buy it shelf-stable. Because I don’t use milk all that often, the half-gallon that we buy often only gets used once or twice before it is expired. But of course, the times that we don’t have milk are the times that I need to use it for something. Since almond milk is shelf stable, I could buy some and just have it as a backup in case I need it for a baking or cooking project.