Almond butter. What an joy. This has got to be the easiest thing to make. 500g almonds, toasted very lightly in the oven, then whizzed in a (brand new) blender along with about a teaspoon of sea salt and added groundnut oil. It's worth adding the oil really slowly, it doesn't need too much. Just enough to make into an irresistible pale caramel cream. As you can see from the only pic I managed, it is irresistible. It was so delicious, I immediately decided to make some more, plenty more, this treat needs to be shared. Also, an experiment with cashews. The nuts covered in a little oil and sprinkled with a teaspoon of hot pimenton, mixed and roasted lightly. Spicy cashew butter. A snip. What could go wrong. Into the shiny blender - blend.
I say brand new, but the six months I have had this Magimix has been inspiring. After too many years using the clunky old one I inherited from my son's student house, suddenly it was soups, pates and purees, and why not. I put all the delicious-smelling cashews into the tall glass jar and started my magic. Bit of oil...a bit more.... a bit more.... didn't seem to be taking. More and more, till the nuts finally came together in a thick creamy gloop. It looked good, but the blender did seem to struggle. Now for the sterilized little jars. I picked the heavy square jar off the base and froze in horror as the bottom fell off. Slowly the whole jar of cashew butter slid inexorably all over the base, and gracefully pooled onto the counter. The base for some inexplicable reason had come loose, got looser, gave up. With hands covered in an oily sticky mess, we eventually got the giggles as we tried to retrieve what we could.
It says something for the nut butter that some of us ended up licking excess off the machine before scrubbing.. With all the excess oil in a giant pool behind, it was a serious clean up job. And with that, the huge tray of almonds which were gently toasting, became well, over-toasted.
Into in the blender, no backing out now. But it didn't want to know. It whizzed a bit, slowed down, then gave up. The oil and nuts had done their worst. A Kg of almond butter, too dark, and far too chunky. Still sublimely edible for all that, I'm jolly well handing it out anyway.
Jenny, oh how much so I envy folks who can eat nuts and not break out into a zip farm! I LOVE LOVE almond, the way they smell, the crunchiness and the taste, unfortunately after many attempts of eating them and hope to still have clear skin, somehow I always wake up with a couple of boils the next morning, so no more nuts for this poor woman...
ReplyDeleteHi Jeno, poor you - boils! Oh well, there's lots of other delicious things, I suppose : )
DeleteI saw almond butter jar in the store and wondered how it tastes like for the longest time. Growing up in Japan, peanut butter is something foreign, of course there is no almond butter (unless you go to import store etc). I actually prefer almonds over peanuts in general (even in chocolate bar, etc), so I think I might like this. Do you use it to spread on the bread etc? I bought peanut butter to make cookies, but not for spread as we like Nutella more than PB. Trying to see how I can use the almonds butter. Now that I read your story, my curios level is maximum. Hmmm I should try the small batch before buying a big jar! Thanks for introducing this, Jenny!
ReplyDeleteHi Nami, we found we just ate it with a spoon out the jar! Great on bread and butter, I also ate it with dry dates - a real energy snack.
ReplyDeleteYum! I want to make my own almond butter as well, it sounds so easy and delicious!
ReplyDeleteThanks you Katherine. Be careful, it is addictive!
ReplyDeleteLuckily for me, Costco now sells giants jars of almond butter relatively cheaply. It's easy to make, but much easier to buy! I love to bake with almond butter, too.
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