Nut butter recipes...

[sunflowerseed]

Hello! I'm new to the forum, nice to meet you all!

I have a quick question about nut butter, I have done a couple of searches but can't quite find what I'm looking for - apologies if I've missed something obvious and do merge the thread!

I usually buy nut butters (almond being a favourite but also cashew sometimes and hazlenut too!) but I fancied a go at making them! Does anyone have a tried and tested recipe? Am I better using sesame oil or a different one? Do I need to soak the nuts first? (Loooooooove soaked nuts, yum!) and how long does it last in the fridge? (probably not an issue, lol!)

Thank you muchly in advance x

[twinkle]

Don't soak the nuts! I tried this last time with almonds and they didn't "butter up" (you can make a great nut cheesed this way by adding olive oil, salt, rosemary and garlic, google 'Almond feta recipe' if you're interested, but that's not what you're asking for ). In fact, I didn't even soak the almonds I was trying to make almond butter out of, they'd just been blanched, but the moisture seemed to stop them turning into a paste, they just ground very finely.

I've made peanut butter and almond butter by roasting in a medium oven for about 7-10 minutes, and then trying to just grind them in a food processor. They take quite a few minutes in my processor because it's a bit puny so I had to keep stopping and starting and scraping the sides down, and I ended up adding a neutral vegetable oil (canola in my case, but add whatever you like the taste of) to get things going, but they did produce a fairly smooth and tasty product in the end.

[Korn]

if I've missed something

http://www.veganforum.com/forums/sho...d-seed-butters

[Mymblesdaughter]

I've tried to make it before I made peanut and pumpkin seed butter and cashew nut butter I had the same problem as twinkle, I couldn't get them fine enough. I ground them for ages in my food processor, it kept overheating. I added some oil to the peanut and pumpkin seed one and that tasted good but was like spreading ground nuts on bread. I did wonder about getting something like a coffee grinder as they should grind quite finely. What do other people use?

I've made the almond feta as well it's really nice, I used ground almonds for that though.

[Korn]

If you add just a little oil (eg. sunflower oil) in the beginning, it's a lot easier to get the butter fine. Also - if you don't scrape the sides down, the end result will become more like the commercial version, and look more 'golden' (at least with hazelnuts).

[sunflowerseed]

Lovely, thank you! I might do small batches in our coffee grinder to start it off maybe? Our food processor is only a baby one!

Off to look at that thread now, thank you Korn!

[sunflowerseed]

Oh and thank you MD, I won't soak first!!

[sunflowerseed]

Well I did the hazelnut version this morning - I was blending it for ages and ages and ages but it didn't quite leave the grainy stage.. Mixed it with some melted dark chocolate though and it was lovely - not sweet at all which was really lovely compared to the shop bought ones! Only needed a small amount spread on toasted homemade wholemeal bread - really lovely breakfast!

[sunflowerseed]

Roasting makes all the difference it seems - I have a lovely jar of perfect almond nut butter now!