Sunny Spring 'Milk' Recipe
made from sunflower seeds?!
WHO KNEW sunflower seed milk would froth so well? NOT ME, that’s for sure.
I came home from a trip and immediately needed to experiment in my kitchen to *feel something again*. I was all out of milk so I popped over to my favorite place in London, Whole Foods (sponsor me pls), and checked out the bulk section to see what organic nuts and seeds were available. Turns out, sunflower seeds are way cheaper than the rest? So that’s what I purchased.
SIDE NOTE - if you want to learn more about *real* milk history, please check out Mark Kurlansky’s book MILK, it’s my favorite read of his! I was going to write a brief history of milk Substack and honestly, there’s simply no way to be brief about it - too many fun anecdotes!
I whipped up a batch (messily) as you’ll be able to see below and wasn’t expecting much from it apart from a fun activity and a few days worth of “milk”.
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Upon tasting this sunflower seed milk it on its own, I really liked it but didn’t think it would pair that well with matcha or coffee because the sunflower seed flavor was quite strong. I used it anyways in my morning matcha and then later in the day in coffee and was wowed??? The pairings were honestly very pleasant surprises!
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Further, I learned thanks to my TikTok comments (shoutout) that sunflower seeds are high in lecithin (a fatty substance found in plant and animal tissue such as egg yolks) which acts as a natural emulsifier. This explains the INCREDIBLE froth.
The Recipe
I’ve remade this recipe many times using a mixture of different nuts, seeds, and spices and found that this one really hit the mark on flavor + texture + pairing versatility with both coffee and matcha. I’ve also added in a quick cracker recipe to use up the leftover pulp.