DIY: Homemade Almond Butter

Let me start this story by giving a little background on the hardware featured in this particular post. I’d been eying food processors like a kid looks at the passing candy store window, or cat looks at a fishbowl. I WANTED a food processor for reasons I can’t quite explain. The strong urge to rice cauliflower isn’t something that normal people think of, but I’ve also never claimed nor do I want to be “normal”…not if it means giving up dreams like making an attempt to “rice” cauliflower. But, this particular post is about nut butter so I shall continue. The story is, I got hooked on the stuff then went into my budget mode and got the DIY itch at the same time and scoured the internet for almond butter recipes.

We used to get a tub of fresh cold-pressed almond butter, and one of pumpkin seed butter each week. But, two tubs of $9/each nut butter per week got me thinking, “I HAVE to be able to make this at home and have it taste at least as good as this”. So, off to Costco I ventured to live out my food processor dreams. I purchased my first food processor from Costco and LOVED it!  Here are the links to check out the items on Amazon: THIS food processor, THIS set of blades, THIS dough blade and THIS blade storage container). 

That little thing not only fit in a small condo kitchen but also was quite a trooper and held up for years under overheating sessions while making my weekly batch of almond butter. It was the Cuisinart Prep 11 Plus™ 11-Cup Food Processor with Blade Storage which was purchased from Costco about 5 years back for about $120. It was a good little machine and I used it until it literally fell apart and the heat cracked the base after 3 years of weekly almond butter making and machine overheating. After we moved into a house and the little processor that could finally fell apart it was time to upgrade. That’s when the Mr. surprised me at Christmas with the Breville BFP800XL Sous Chef Food Processor and it is a GAME CHANGER! I LOVE this machine!

I won’t lie, there was a little intimidation when I started researching some nut and seed butter recipes. They warned that it would take up to 20 minutes to make nut butter. Who’s got the time! BUT, it’s part of both of our morning routines and it just so delicious and part of my “always have in the house” list so there was no turning back!

My amazing, lovely, wonderful food processor did the trick though! It was sturdy enough that I don’t have to stand and hold it while all those almonds whirled around. I could turn it on and do other chores in the kitchen in-between checking on the butter progress. I’d love to say that the first batch was an incredible success, that it was as if I had been making nut and seed butter all my life and that I was a natural…what, with my infinite patience and such (insert laugh here) but alas, I was not an instant success. I did not make fantastic, amazing nut and seed butter the first time I tried. The first almond butter tasted weird because I used flax oil instead of flax meal. The flax oil had a very…”earthy” taste which tasted healthy but wasn’t amazingly tasty. But, with a very patient taste tester and a few batches, the recipe was pretty dialed in! Now, I made this every other week (because one batch lasts us that long) and it’s a must have around our house!

Whenever I travel for work, the Mr. asks for a batch of almond butter, a stockpile of oatmeal, toasted quinoa and a batch of soup for freezer rations. I’ll update this post with links to all that once I have the recipes ready to post!

Homemade Raw Almond Butter
Yield: one pint
Time: 10-15 minutes 

Ingredients
4 cups almonds
1/2 cup  sunflower seeds
1/4 cup flax-seed meal
1/4 cup  grapeseed oil

Directions

1. Place almonds in food processor and blend. It will be very loud at first but as soon as the nuts start to get broken down the noise will quiet a bit! Let it run for 3-5 minutes before opening. Let the nuts get fully chopped down and start to form little chunks. Once you see this, open the top and use a knife. I’ve sacrificed spatulas to the sharp blade trying to break down the almond clumps that form so I use a butter knife now.
2. Continue to blend and stop to scrape the sides down so all the ingredients get blended together ever 1-2 minutes.
3. At about 7 minutes, you’ll notice the bowl getting moist/humid when you remove the lid to scrape down the sides. Pull out the stopper on the top feeding portion of the food processor for the remaining time to reduce the moisture trapped in the bowl.
4. At 15 minutes, my food processor turns itself off so I let the almond butter rest for 3-5 minutes. This is also the stage where I start to notice the mixture is sticking to itself and doesn’t require continued scraping of the sides but only the bottom of the bowl. This can take another 5-10 minutes, depending on your food processor.
5. Once the base cools down, resume blending until you see the nut butter starts to form into a play dough texture.
6. Once the almond butter is broken down and smooth (like almond butter from the store)add the flax-seed, sunflower seeds and then blend to incorporate another 1-2 minutes. Your food processor might get warm but don’t worry too much, you can always let it cool a little bit and then blend away.

Place in an airtight container (Tupperware or glass jar) and store in refrigerator up to 2 weeks.