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Repurposing Almonds at Airbnb’s HQ
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San Francisco, California

Repurposing Almonds at Airbnb’s HQ

Making Almond Milk and Kladdkaka Brownies with Airbnb's Chefs.

In our kitchen at Airbnb, we make fresh almond milk twice weekly with almonds delivered directly from a farm in Capay Valley. We bottle and serve it in reusable glass milk jugs, eliminating the waste that would come from boxed or bottled almond milk. Unlike processed options, our house-made almond milk contains no added stabilizers, sweeteners or preservatives. It’s just two ingredients: almonds and water.

A side benefit of making your own nut and seed milks is the fiber is separated out and can be used for many purposes. Primarily, we put it to use as a gluten-free flour in our baking program, and the pulp can be frozen for months if you can’t use it right away.

For this recipe, Chef Robin Luu learned to make the brownie (kladdkaka) from a friend’s grandmother while living in Sweden. Since transporting it back to California, Luu has made the recipe healthier by reducing sugar and substituting refined white flour for whole food ingredients such as almond meal and sucanat.

Simple Almond Milk

1 cup almonds
3 cups water

Soak almonds in water overnight, or for at least 8 hours. Strain and rinse the almonds.

In a blender, add soaked almonds and 4 cups fresh water. Blend well.

Set up a wide mouth bowl with a handle strainer or colander across the top. Strain through a nut milk bag, or cheesecloth:

  • Set up cloth inside of strainer.
  • Pour blender contents slowly through.
  • Gather the top of the bag/cheesecloth.
  • Squeeze gently at first and let gravity do the work. Half of the milk will release on its own.
  • When dryer and smaller, apply more pressure to extract the remaining milk.

Pour almond milk into your favorite serving or storage vessel. Strain again if any pulp ended up in the milk.

Save almond pulp for gluten-free baking projects. If you don’t plan on using it immediately, pulp will stay fresh for weeks in your freezer.

To dry the almond pulp:

After making the almond milk, take the wet pulp and spread a thin layer onto a baking sheet. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes at 325° F or until it has completely dried.

This dried pulp is then used to make the brownies.

Kladdkaka Brownie

by Chef Robin Luu

150 grams butter
275 grams sucanat
33 grams Dutch processed cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons Greek yogurt
1/8 teaspoon finely ground espresso or instant coffee grounds
1/2 vanilla bean (scraped), or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature

160 grams dried almond pulp
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven at 350° F and butter a 10-inch round springform pan.

Place the dried almond pulp in a blender or food processor and process until finely ground.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the finely ground almond pulp and baking powder. Set aside.

Melt butter.

Once cool to the touch, add all of the ingredients, except almond pulp and baking powder, to the butter.

Whisk well to combine.

Pour this mixture into the bowl of almond pulp and baking powder.

Whisk well to combine until the batter is homogenous.

Pour the batter into the buttered springform pan and bake for 20 minutes. Do not over bake; it’s okay if it’s still a little gooey.

Let cool for 15 minutes before eating. Serve with unsweetened whipped cream.

Airbnb HQ
888 Brannan St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Photography edits by Antonio Diaz

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