Are store-bought ground almonds typically defattened?

Question

I replaced store-bought ground almonds with almonds that I ground myself using a blender in a biscuit recipe (brünsli) and upon baking, the biscuits lost their shape, halfway melting. The same recipe with store-bought ground almonds works without problem. Since the consistency of the dough (pre baking) was the same in both variants, my analysis of the problem is that there was more fat in the self-ground variant, thus indicating that the store-bought almonds are somehow defattened (for lack of a more appropriate word)?

Thanks!

Answer 1

It depends on what you bought.

1. You can buy simply ground almonds, which have nothing removed - neither the brown skin before grinding, nor any amount of fat.
2. The second possibility is that they removed the skin before grinding, but else left everything as-is.
3. There is also a product that has both the skin removed and some fat removed. It is usually sold under the name "almond flour" rather than "ground almonds", and is typically of finer grind than the two others.

The first type is closest to home-ground almonds, but it will still behave differently than home-ground almonds, because it loses moisture during storage. If you are making a no-flour recipe that has ground almonds only, it isn't surprising that any substitution between these three, or dry-bought-freshly-ground, or even freshly-deshelled-freshly-ground almonds, can absorb a different amount of liquid or fat, and result in bad texture.