Friday, July 12, 2013

Homemade Nut Butters—Honey Peanut Butter, Almond Butter and Sunflower Seed Butter

Honey Peanut Butter 7-10-13

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter, July 2013

I’ve been making homemade nut butters and promised a few people I’d post about them.  There is something about making nut butters homemade that is fun and in my opinion taste better.  I love knowing exactly what is in them and controlling how much salt goes in as well.  It is also more economical than buying them.  I’m sure I’ll still buy my favorite ones from time to time, but I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve done so far.

Besides for health reasons, I started  making these after ordering five pounds each of raw sunflower seeds, raw almonds and raw pecans.  I love eating raw nuts and seeds.  I actually prefer sunflower seeds raw rather than roasted and salted.  For the nut butter, I did roast and salt them.

I just made the Honey Peanut Butter yesterday.  I might be my favorite one so far!  I had some raw peanuts and roasted them on a baking sheet.  When they came out of the oven, I sprinkled just a little salt on them.  After they had completely cooled, I put them in the food processor and pulse them until they were chopped finely.  Then I turned the food processor on and let them go until they became a paste.  I would stop and scrape the sides of the bowl from time to time.  It only took about five minutes until they became a great peanut butter.  I sprinkled in a little bit more salt.  Then for kicks, I decided to add some raw honey.  I added a tablespoon.  The peanut butter thickened up quite a bit after I added the honey.  I wasn’t sure if it would smooth back out if I just kept the food processor running, so I decided to add some organic coconut oil to it.  That smoothed it right out and the peanut butter tastes fantastic!  I love just the ever-so-slight hint of coconut flavor and the perfect amount of honey.  This might be my favorite nut butter I’ve made so far, but every time I make one, I think that.  They each taste so different, it’s really hard to say.

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups raw peanuts

1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 tablespoons raw honey

1 tablespoon organic coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spread peanuts on baking sheet in an even layer.  Roast for about 10 minutes.  After removing them from the oven, sprinkle a little salt over them.  Let cool completely.  Put the peanuts in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they are chopped finely.  Turn the food processor on and let them go until they begin to form a paste.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and process until it becomes a smooth peanut butter ( about 5 minutes total).  Sprinkle with a little more salt.  Add some raw honey (you don’t have to use raw honey).  After it combines, add coconut oil until it is all smooth.  Let the peanut butter cool, then store in a jar.  If it lasts more than a week, store it in the refrigerator.

  Grain Free Bread/Homemade Honey Peanut Butter 7-12-13

Today I had some of the peanut butter spread on some Grain Free Sandwich Bread I made.  I found the recipe at Unrefined Kitchen.  It is my first try of a grain free bread.  It’s okay.  It’s my first bite of anything bread-like in about a month.  In the recipe, it gives the option of butter or coconut oil.  I used coconut oil.  It also suggested two tablespoons of honey, but more if you want a really sweet bread.  So I only used one tablespoon of raw honey.  I’ll eat the loaf slowly, I’m sure.  It will be fun to try different recipes until I find one that I really like.  It was certainly good with the honey peanut butter on it!

I enjoyed it with some apple slices yesterday not long after I made it.  It’s good enough that I could just dig my finger in the jar as well.  The peanut butter is a light color.  I think it is because the raw peanuts I used did not have skins.  I am assuming a lot of peanut butters are made with the skins on and/or they are roasted to a darker color.  This is perfect to me. ;)

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter

I made sunflower seed butter about three weeks ago.  Loved it.  I need to make some more.  There isn’t really a recipe for that.  I roasted raw sunflower seeds (about 3 cups) on a baking sheet at 350 degrees F. for about 10 minutes.  I lightly salted them when they came out of the oven.  I let them cool completely.  I put them in the food processor and let it go, scraping the sides every couple of minutes until it formed a nice smooth butter.  This took probably closer to a total of 10 minutes until it was the consistency I wanted.  You can decide how smooth or crunchy you’d like any of these butters.

Homemade Sunflower Seed Butter 6-15-13 Here’s a couple pictures of the sunflower butter in process.

Roasted Sunflower Seeds

Sunflower seeds after one minute

After a few pulses in the food processor.

Sunflower seeds after 2 minutes

After 2 minutes in the food processor.

Sunflower seeds after 6 minutes 

After 4 minutes in the food processor.

Sunflower seeds after 6 minutesAfter 6 minutes in the food processor.

Sunflower seeds after 8 minutes 

After 8 minutes in the food processor.

Sunflower seeds after 10 minutes

My favorite thing to do with the sunflower butter, besides dipping carrot sticks in it, is make one of my breakfast smoothies.  I always put a tablespoon of peanut butter in it, but tried it with sunflower seed butter and it was really good.  I’ve always tried my smoothies with almond butter.  They are all good, but this particular one is really good with the sunflower seed butter.  This smoothie has a secret ingredient that one wouldn’t think of for smoothies, but I love it!

Banana Sweet Potato Sunflower Seed Butter Smoothie

I kept forgetting exactly what I was putting in the smoothie, so I finally remember to take a picture of the ingredients once recently.  Funny thing is, I forgot to add the Greek yogurt in the photo. ;)

Breakfast Banana Smoothie ingredients, including Greek yogurt, no pictured

The secret ingredient is sweet potato!  So really this smoothie just has banana, sweet potato, nonfat Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter and my vitamin powder and some almond milk.

Breakfast Banana Sunflower Smoothie, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1/2 a banana, frozen

1/4 of a sweet potato, cooked and cooled, skin removed before adding to smoothie

1 tablespoon sunflower seed butter (or other nut butter)

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1/2-3/4 cup almond milk (or any other milk)

1/2-3/4 cup crushed ice

vitamin powder (mine has a light orange flavor), optional

Combine all ingredients in a blender.  Pulse and puree until smooth, about 1 minute.

Although I often have green smoothies or put other fruit in them as well, this banana one is my favorite.  You can’t really taste the sweet potato, but it sure makes the smoothie creamy and adds a lot of nutrition!

Finally, I have made almond butter at least three times.  Super easy and great for so many things.  I just made another batch two days ago.

Lunch 6-20-13  Here’s one of my lunches recently with almond butter.

Homemade Almond Butter, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

4 cups raw almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put the almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Roast for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  Put the almonds in the bowl of a food processor.  Process (it’s pretty loud at first as they start to chop up!) the almonds until they become a smooth butter.  This takes a good 10 minutes.  Let cool (the food processor warms up a bit) before store in a glass jar.  This amount of almonds made 16 ounces of almond butter.

Almond Butter

Almond Butter

Can’t wait to try all kinds of different things with all these nut/seed butters I’ve been making homemade!  I know that there are a lot of grain-free/gluten free recipes that use almond butter and have been enjoying looking at all the possibilities. 

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! You have been busy. Thanks for all of these. I am def making the pecan nut butter. Maybe wit some honey. And that smoothing looks perfect!!

Unknown said...

I missed reading your posts... These butters look amazing. Must try soon!

Anonymous said...

What a great idea - we LIVE on almond butter but I've never made it myself - this is fab!!
Mary x

Veronica Miller said...

I love the light color on your honey peanut butter, and bet it's so yummy with the honey and coconut oil! I've never had sunflower seed butter but that sounds really good. I' do love homemade almond butter and need to make some more! Your butters are beautiful!

Phô mai que said...

I love your butter, the color looks so nice. Thanks for the recipe!

Jennifer said...

Sorry if I missed this and you already addressed it, but where did you buy the nuts/seeds in bulk? I have a food processor and really want to try and make the sunflower ssed butter, but think buying enough seeds at the store would be cost-prohibitive, especially if I buy them at the health food store.

Katrina said...

Jennifer, I got the nuts from Nutty Guys. Our neighborhood did a big group order, which gives you more of a discount I believe. You CAN order from them online www.nuttyguys.com and from www.nuts.com (another company)

Jennifer said...

Katrina, Thanks for the info.

Nancy @ gottagetbaked said...

I love this post, Katrina! I've been wanting to make my own nut butters for a long time now but because I only have a one cup food processor, I keep thinking that it'll be tedious to make several batches (when in reality, I should only make a little at a time instead of a giant vat). I'm so amazed that nuts transform into such silky, creamy spreads. And I have to confess, when I first saw that photo of your smoothie with the straw in it, I thought you just stuck a straw into a jar of nut butter, lol (which is totally something I would do!).

Nutmeg Nanny said...

I really love making my own nut butters :) I will definitely have to try out your recipes