Almond meal, also called ground flour or almond flour is produced from ground sweet almonds. However, almond flour is typically made using blanched almonds. This means the raw almonds have been briefly submersed in boiling water and then rinsed to remove the skin from the nut meat.

Almond meal on the other hand, can be made using whole or blanched almonds. The consistency of it is closer to that of corn meal than wheat flour.

Basically, almond meal and almond flour are both finely ground almonds. But a courser ground is usually implied when referring to almond meal. Almond flour is ground to a finer consistency.

Almond meal is used in a variety of sweet pastries and confections. It can also be used in pie fillings and cakes, and it is one of the two main ingredients of marzipan and almond paste.

This is my favorite part. In France, almond meal is basically the most important ingredient in frangipane, which is used as the filling in the traditional galette des Rois cake. If you don’t know what that is, I’m going to give you a link right here so you can learn more about it: Galette des Rois: All you need to know about a French tart fit for kings

I don’t have a recipe for frangipane on the website yet, but I hope to eventually add one. In the meantime, I highly recommend looking for some recipes online and making some almond paste for yourself. It’s super delicious, just make sure you cook it first because it does have raw egg in it.

Recently, almond meal has become more prominent for those on low-carb diets. It adds a nice rich nutty taste and brings extra moisture to baked goods. The only downside is that if you’re a calorie counter, you can expect the foods baked with almond meal to contain more calories.

I like to keep plenty of almonds on hand just for the purpose of making almond paste. I have one bag of raw almonds and one bag of roasted almonds I snack on a semi-regular basis.

If you don’t feel like whipping up some almond meal at home, I know for sure that Bob’s Red Mill sells it. You’ll probably need to look for the health food section of your grocery store.