Almond Butter

Yesterday was, of course, the Super Bowl. While I don’t like football (I’m more of a hockey girl), who doesn’t like a good excuse to make just a ton of food and yell at the TV for a couple hours?

So this week, I’m going to talk about some of the food I made. Not today, though. Today I’m going to talk about what I made last Friday that was an ingredient in something I made for the Super Bowl. But just so you have an idea of what to look forward to, here’s a little preview:

“What is all of that?” Oh, you’ll find out. You’ll find out. 😀 (Let’s ignore the stuff I shoved under the coffee table.)

Today, we’re talking about almond butter! Because I have three pounds of almonds in my freezer and I don’t drink that much almond milk.

What you’ll need:

• 2 cups almonds (for 1 cup almond butter–increase as desired)
• 1/8 tsp salt (optional)
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• 1 tsp agave nectar (optional)

Step 01: Put your almonds in your food processor. In case you’re curious, I did try this in my blender, just to see if it was possible–it wasn’t. Also, I have a Ninja food processor–I think it’s this one, but I’m not sure. I got it as a gift a couple years ago. 

Step 02: Turn on your food processor. Now…you’re going to need a really good food processor for this. One that runs on about 1000 watts (unlike mine, which is about 450) and that you can leave on for about 20 minutes (again, unlike mine, which I have to hold the button down on). You can try to make this with a different food processor, but I would honestly never make almond butter again with the one that I have. It’s just not good enough for that. Plus, the blades are so far apart that it doesn’t chop anything evenly. (Honestly, I don’t really recommend Ninja and I sort of suspect that many of the Amazon reviews are by Ninja employees and/or shareholders…. I don’t usually get paranoid about “The Man” like that, but reading some of the threads on there made me wonder.)

ANYWAY! Keep an eye on you almonds as they run, because you’ll need to scrape down the sides every so often. (Which is another reason I don’t recommend the Ninja. In order for me to scrape down the sides every time, I had to completely dismantle my food processor. By that I mean, you have to remove the motor, remove the lid, scrape, put the lid back on, try to put the motor back on–because sometimes it just doesn’t want to lock into place–and start again.)

Don’t freak out if your almond mixture starts getting really hot–that’s normal. Your almonds will definitely be cooked by the time you’re done here. 😛

Step 03: In a normal food processor, this would take about fifteen minutes. It actually took me hours because my motor kept overheating. Which is why I recommend using 1000 watts (which is more along the lines of professional grade) and not 450. To keep it from burning out on me, I gave it a rest every so often.

You’ll know you’re making progress when it starts sticking together. After a while longer, it will stop being so gritty, and then it will start to actually look creamy. Once it was done, though, I added some salt, cinnamon, and agave nectar…just as a little extra. You don’t have to add any of that, but it was really good.

I didn’t make much because I didn’t need much. As I said, this is an ingredient for something I made yesterday that I will post about tomorrow. 😀

If you have a food processor that can handle it, though, I do recommend making your own almond butter. It’s so good and definitely better than store bought.

Also, you should probably keep this in the fridge.

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