Homemade Nut Butter

BTH

PIc not showing on phomeme (HTC) or work computer Mossy.

mossym

right then, google photos not working. lets try something else. let me know if ye can see these.

almond butter almost there


and all done, that's 200g of nuts. jar is pretty big but would likely make a bigger batch next time


also gave the peanut butter a go, 400g of nuts


almond on the left, other two jars are peanut. peanut butter came out much much thicker. for the almond butter, i jsut popped in the almonds whole,and started blending. too forever get them down to powder form, bones of 10 minutes i'd say. another 5 and it started to look like butter, after that it was probably the same 5 again till they got to a nice spreadable consistency. dead easy, just takes time. it went through exactly the steps in that link i posted above, including working itself into a big ball i had to break up. very impressed with the outcome though

for the peanuts, i bought 400g of peanut halves. looked very lightly roasted, if at all, so one of the methods i saw said to roast for 20 minutes first. did that, but it was too long, or my oven was too hot, or both, but some of them came out a bit too roasted. first mistake

i had two similar recipes. one said let the nuts cool after roasting, other said no need. as it was after 9, i decided there was no need. so I started grinding while they were still hot. way too hot. don't do this. let them cool. i think any of the natural oil that came out just evaporated. second mistake

they do grind a lot more readily when they are hot though, in roughly half the time i had gotten to a nice smooth butter. one of the recipes said for smoother butter add a teaspoon of oil at this stage, also said for a bit of sweetness add honey. so i decided to do both, as better chance of my bigger one eating it then. not sure what happened, but after having lovely smooth butter, adding the oil and honey caused it to thicken up again substantially. kept blending for a while more but couldn't get it back to the smooth butter i had .

now, it still tastes lovely, but it is thick and slightly grainy. will be perfect for putting on rice cakes, which was my main aim, but might be tough to spread thinly on bread.

so big success on the almond butter, pretty good on the peanut butter.


my porridge scones didn't work out as well unfortunately, but that's a separate story!!


tempted to try the hazelnuts and cocoa powder i have at home to see how close to nutella i can get. have to wait till after lent though..:)

pgibbo

Can see them fine. Fair play. Looks good. :cool:

What was the cost vs what you'd buy? I know you enjoy it and prefer to make than buy. It's a question rather than a dig.

mossym

pgibbo wrote: »

Can see them fine. Fair play. Looks good. :cool:

What was the cost vs what you'd buy? I know you enjoy it and prefer to make than buy. It's a question rather than a dig.

i stopped in tesco just because there is one right on my drive home
200g of almonds in tesco@ 2 euros
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=261591556

170g meridian in tecso is 4.99
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=288745069

now, last night was my first time trying almond butter, now a fan, so there may be cheaper sources than that 5 euros, but i;ve never looked

on the peanuts, again tesco, 300g for 3 euros
http://www.tesco.ie/groceries/Product/Details/?id=276416276

i made 2 bags of them, so 600g peanut butter for 6 euros.

seems pretty reasonable. it also says, unless i am missing something obvious, that 1kg of nuts in tesco is around 10 euros, buying 5 or 3 of the bags, versus 15 in lidl

joey100

Lidl do decent prices on Almonds too. If you buy them in the home cooking/baking part rather than the nuts part. Usually pick up a bag or two when I'm there, can't remember the price but know it was good.

68 lost souls

I remember a while ago getting a great price On nuts in the local Asian cuisine shop. Can't remember how much but worth checking

mossym

68 lost souls wrote: »

I remember a while ago getting a great price On nuts in the local Asian cuisine shop. Can't remember how much but worth checking

had read that somewhere alright that they were a good source. must check it out next time i am near one

VictorNeva

mossym wrote: »

blender? i'm going to do it with a fork...


yup, will do

And the cheapest way to get nuts is to grow (or buy) your own nut tree

mossym

tried the peanut properly this evening, spread over a schar crispbread (http://www.schar.com/en-ca/products/us-crackers/crispbread). forgive my gloating when i say it was delicious. crispbread are 30 calories or so per slice. i'm estimating the peanut butter as 800 or i'll be going back for multiple helpings.

Neady83

mossym wrote: »

tried the peanut properly this evening, spread over a schar crispbread (http://www.schar.com/en-ca/products/us-crackers/crispbread). forgive my gloating when i say it was delicious. crispbread are 30 calories or so per slice. i'm estimating the peanut butter as 800 or i'll be going back for multiple helpings.

Thanks Mossy, I just downed two coconutty, datey, almondy, coaoa, haselnutty balls and now I'm hankering after peanut butter and corn cakes. nom nom nom

Clairekillen

I make almond butter and Nutella all the time. For Nutella I use the deliciously Ella recipe it is so good! For almond butter I roast 400g of almonds at180 degrees for 10 minutes then blend them until they completely break down, then add a pinch of sea salt and a large spoon of cinnamon, simple and delicious!

Krusty_Clown

It's worth dropping into your local Asian supermarket. They usually sell 750g bags of loose un-roasted peanuts for €2.50. I buy two bags, one with the peanuts skins on, and one without. Preheat the oven to around 160-170'C (no need to be fussy), and put a layer of peanuts in a roasting tray. Roast for around 12 minutes, giving them a rattle every few minutes. Once they've accumulated a bit of colour, taken them out. 2/3rds fill your food processor and blitz. This will take a while. Blitz for one minutes, scrape off the sides, blitz again. Repeat until you have peanut butter. If you like it crunchy, then reserve some whole roasted peanuts and add them at the end. I like to add a grind of salt - otherwise there's nothing else added or needed. Tastes even better than Meridian, and at a fraction of the price (1/3rd to be a little more exact). Food processor takes a bit of washing, otherwise, it's just a case of holding down the food processor button, plus you get the smug satisfaction of having made your own PB. Well worth it.

/back in my box now..

mossym

2kg of skinned and halved peanuts for 7.90 in the asian store in Limerick. Not quite the bargain you got krusty but far better than tesco / lidl. Be making a big batch this week!!!