Bready or Not: Maple Nut Butter
Originally published at BethCato.com. You can comment here or there.
Peanut butter can be bought for cheap. Other nut butters? Not so much. The good news is, with a food processor and about 20 minutes of spare time, you can make your own amazing nut butter!
Me being me, I make MAPLE NUT BUTTER. I have done this two ways: with 1 cup each of almonds and cashews, and also with 2 cups of cashews. Other nut combos should work just fine, too. The end yield will be somewhere about 1 1/2 cups nut butter.
I priced and researched food processors for about a year until I caved in and bought a lovely refurbished Cuisinart model. This baby does the job. I’m pretty darn happy with it.
I combined a few recipes to make my own original version. I will type out the details of each stage in the full recipe below, but let’s illustrate in pictures first.
You toss the nuts in maple syrup and toast them in the oven. Let them cool a bit before processing them.
The ground nuts looks like coarse nut flour at first. They will gum up the blades every minute or so. I stop and scrape the sides often.
Then things start to get clumpy. Those lumps will migrate around on the blades like a glacier.
Keep on processing, and after about 15 minutes, you get that. Almost smooth nut butter! After a few more minutes it gets even smoother, and that is when you add spice, flavor, and a bit of oil.
I seal the nut butter in jars and store them in the fridge. Try to use it up within a month. It will be dryer than the standard store stuff, but you can always mix in a little more oil. I like avocado oil because it’s almost tasteless. The nut butter itself is the tastiest nut butter you’ll ever have. It just screams of maple and cinnamon and freshness.
Ready for the recipe? Okay!
Bready or Not: Maple Nut Butter
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Use a food processor to grind down maple-drenched cashews and almonds to make some seriously delicious nut butter! Using about 2 cups of nuts will produce about 1 1/2 cups nut butter. Store the stuff in mason jars in the fridge for up to four weeks. If it’s too dry to spread, mix in a drizzle of oil.
- Toast
- 2 cups nuts (1 cups almonds + 1 cup cashews, or 2 cups cashews, or try other combos)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- After processing
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon maple flavor (optional, but adds oomph)
- 1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1+ Tablespoon avocado oil or other oil
- sprinkle of sea salt
Preheat oven at 325-degrees. Line a rimmed baking pan with sturdy aluminum foil. In the pan, toss the two cups of nuts with maple syrup until they are coated. Toast for about 15 minutes, checking about every 5 minutes to toss the nuts around. Let the nuts cool for 30 minutes or so.
Add the nuts to a food processor. (Note that you'll need to pry some off the foil.) Put the lid on and start processing. Run for 2 to 3 minutes then scrape down sides. The mix will look coarse and gritty.
Continue processing, pausing every 1 or 2 minutes to scrape sides of bowl. Mixture will start to clump together.
Continue grinding. The nuts will release more oil and start to smooth out more. Continue to stop and scrape the sides every 2 minutes or so to give the machine a break. After about 10 total minutes, it will look like nut butter but it won't be done yet!
Continue processing. It will smooth out and finally evolve to a liquid-like form that snakes across the blades. This will be at about the 15 to 20 minute point. Add the rest of the ingredients and process another minute or so to blend together. Taste test to see if you need to tweak things.
Transfer the nut butter to mason jars to store in the fridge for up to four weeks. If it seems especially dry, mix in a drizzle of oil.
OM NOM NOM!
