Over the weekend I posted on my personal Facebook page that I was about to sample some camel milk for the first time, sent to me by Desert Farms. I got such a kick out of the responses from my friends and family! Lots of people wanted to weigh in on this new culinary adventure I was about to have, and most people expressed various degrees of shock, curiosity, and confusion. I think this is because you can’t just roll up to your local grocery store and purchase some camel milk. In fact, in my 35 years on this earth, to my knowledge I have never once tried milk from a camel.
So, yeah, it’s kind of a weird thing, at least here in the United States. But in many other parts of the world, camel milk is a common source of nutrition. If you want to read up on the benefits of camel milk, click here, but the Cliff’s Notes version is that it’s a fantastic source of vitamin B1, calcium, phosphorous, potassium and protein. Also? I think it tastes very similar to cow milk (something I love but that I’m starting to suspect that my body isn’t as crazy about as it used to be…hence starting to seek out some alternatives for myself).
After trying out camel milk by simply tasting it, I felt comfortable to do a little baking with it. I actually made gluten-free chocolate chip scones, and I thought the camel milk performed just as well as cow milk does in this recipe. In other words, I had great results!
After my experiments with camel milk, I can say that I personally found it to be very similar in taste to cow milk (I thought it had a slightly nutty flavor as the key difference). The taste is similar enough for me to be willing to drink a glass of it all by itself (which honestly is the ultimate test! It took me several weeks to work up to doing that with almond milk!). And I thought it substituted for cow milk in a recipe without issue.
Camel Milk: Where to Buy
If you are looking for a super awesome alternative to cow milk, you really should give camel milk a try. Desert Farms has all of their farms in the United States and would love to provide camel milk to your families. The dairies are small right now, with each member farm having just between 2 and 20 camels, but as demand increases, plans for expansion are underway (and this will also help with bringing the price down…right now there are 18,000 cows for every 1 camel in the United States!).
And now through July 6th, Deserts Farms is offering an extremely generous 40% off sale of their 8 oz camel milk products, so there has never been a better time to take the plunge and try something new!
And here’s that scone recipe to try out once your camel milk arrives!
Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Scones with Camel Milk
- 2 1/2 cups Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small chunks
- 3/4 cup raw camel milk
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 Tbsp coconut sugar (or other sugar of choice)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F. Lightly grease a scone pan
- In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder until well mixed. Add the butter, working it in with a pastry cutter or with your hands until it is very crumbly.
- In a separate bowl, combine camel milk, eggs and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir a few times, and then add the chocolate chips. Mix together until well combined.
- Transfer the dough into the 8 sections of the scone pan. Sprinkle the coconut sugar on top of each scone.
- Bake the scones for 20 minutes and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes prior to serving.
Have you ever tried camel milk? I want to hear what you think about it! Leave me a comment about your experience!
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