Monday, December 3, 2007

Homemade Almond Butter

It's as easy as 1..2...3...
All you need are raw almonds! For this recipe I used a 3 pound bag of almonds. ( hubby is an almond butter freak). But you can use as much as you like depending on how much you want. My cost was $9.79 for the bag at Costco. The jars shown are 16 oz. jars. So this worked out perfectly for me.

Did you know that almonds are one of the most nutritious of all nuts? It's true. One ounce of almonds contains 12 percent of your daily allowance of protein. And absolutely no cholesterol. You'll also get 35 percent of your daily allowance of vitamin E, the valuable antioxidant with so many cancer fighting qualities. And most of the fat in almonds is monounsaturated, also known as the "good" fat.
Almonds are also loaded with minerals like magnesium, phosphorus and zinc, as well as lots of healthy fiber. And don't forget calcium and folic acid! One study showed that three ounces of almonds a day actually lowered a person's cholesterol by 14 percent. Now how can you say no to this nutritious snack?

Well, enough bragging. Try it yourself and I'm sure you will agree that almond butter is the best!
Read below for step by step instructions.

First you will need to toast your almonds. I used a pie tin. You can also place them on a cookie sheet. This held about 2-1/2 cups of nuts. I put them in my toaster oven at 350 degrees F. for about 8-10 minutes stirring every couple of minutes or so so they toasted evenly. Then placed aside to cool.







The easiest way is with a food processor. Of course you can use a blender I suppose but I wouldn't recommend it. Imagine the clean up!











Turn your food processor on high. Slowly add handfuls at a time through the shoot. As it mixes it will make crumbs.











Pretty soon it will start to clump together.













Scrape down the sides every now and then.













After about 7 to 8 minutes you will have nice smooth almond butter. If you like your almond butter chunky add some crushed almonds and pulse a couple of times. That's it in a nutshell (pun intended) Store in a cool place or in the fridge. Enjoy!

16 comments:

Ginny said...

Thank you for posting this. We just found out my daughter is allergic to peanuts and a jar of almond butter at the store is $10!.

Sue said...

I'm in the same situation as Gina. My daughter is also allergic to peanuts. We use almond butter a lot, but $10 a jar really is expensive. Have you ever tried this recipe with raw almonds? If so, does it work?

Anyone try this with a blender? I know you said it would be messy. I have a food processor but it is very small and would take forever to make a batch.

Thanks for this information! It gives hope to the food allergy diet and the budget!

Sue said...

I'm sorry. Not Gina...Ginny! Please forgive me :)

Bitsy said...

Hi Sue,
As far as the blender.. I haven't tried it. Sounds like too much of a mess to clean up. If you make this a lot like I do a bigger food processor would be a good investment. The pictures on this post are old. I have since bought the Cuisinart Prep7. It is so quite and works wonders! I have tried making it with the raw almonds. It worked fine.. seemed to take a little longer to come together though and the unroasted version tasted a little bland to me...

Manny said...

How long is the shelf life?

Emily said...

This would be so cost effective!! I purcahse 17 jars at the store! How long does it keep in the fridge?

Emily said...

I meant to say $17 per jar at the store!!

Bitsy said...

Hi Emily. Wow that's a lot of $ for almond butter! Not sure how long in fridge. Ours doesn't last long enough around here to give you an answer. A week or so? Maybe longer I suppose...

Anonymous said...

How long is the shelf life of homemade almond butter?

Simone said...

Hi everyone,

My daughter also has a peanut allergy. I would be VERY cautious about almonds because many times they are processed in a plant with peanuts.

Having said that, does anyone know of any company that does just almonds?

Have a great day!

Simone

Anonymous said...

Simone, Blue Diamond uses a peanut free factory.

Anonymous said...

Yes, good point. I just bought a jar of Blue Diamond Almond Butter. It tastes awesome. It's Peanut Free and like $4 or $5 a jar, not $10.

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Erika @ Food, Fitness, & Fun said...

I made some homemade almond butter the other day! It took forever with my tiny food processor but it was worth it! Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous said...

Awesome!!! Thanks for sharing. Tried the recipe today - a bit bland, but I think that's because I did not toast it long enough.

Iceni said...

I tried the recipe in a blender and it almost burnt my blender out, so I gave up on it. Now I have bought Bamix and I'm hoping to try it with that.