I love nut butters. I would class them as a stable food group in my diet. They aren't cheap and I spend a lot of money on them per week. So can I make my own for less money and does it taste as good as my favourite brand Keen Nutrition?
Lots of health food bloggers urge us to make our own nut butters because they will be "more nutritious", "no additives", "cheaper" etc etc. All well and good. But who has time to make their own? I certainly am not twiddling my thumbs on a weekend thinking- oh I must make some almond butter. With the amount I eat my house would need to be turned into a factory to meet my appetite for nut butter goodness!
I do have some past experience of making my own almond butter. I can tell you my previous attempts were not very successful and didn't compare on flavour or texture to Keen. Way back in 2008 , hereby know as "pre Keen", when alternative nut butters were in short supply (requiring pre ordering from my local healthfood shop I might add). I had an attempt at making some almond butter that resulted in a burnt out blender and an angry mumma Kirk. The final product wasn't even worth it!
The first issue with making your own nut butter is the food processor. You will need a high powered one with a motor strong enough to turn the Nuts into a smooth delicious paste. These include brands such as magimix and vitamix which usually cost between £300 and £500. Forking out that large sum for a food processor seems like madness to me. Hard to say making your own nut butter is a cheaper alternative.
The second issue is the time involved. The nuts do not magically become a paste after a minute. It can take over 20 minutes to achieve the right consistency. At one stage my other half was concerned and started shouting that it had formed a ball... This is perfectly normal. The time issue is also associated with your food processor because the longer it takes to release the oil from the nuts the more work the processor is having to do.
Another issue is extra ingredients. I am most definitely an almond butter purist. Hence why Keen nut butters are my go to brand. They contain nothing else except some delicious ingredients for flavouring like vanilla, coconut and cinnamon to name a few. When making my own I have found the consistency wasn't quite right and had to resort to adding coconut oil to make it more spreadable.
I did a bit of recipe research and settled on a cashew butter with some vanilla seeds thrown in for good measure. Adding vanilla is like magic! It makes foods taste sweet because of the sweet aroma that vanilla produces which is great if you are trying to reduce sugar consumption. When I'm going to make something for the first time I will look at about 10 different recipes and then make up my own based on a combination of these. My recipe was largely based on a cashew butter that can be found on the Deliciously Ella App. Although to be honest there isn't really a recipe to follow just a method which means it's really flexible! I will let you in to a nut butter secret... The darker the roast of the nuts the better the flavour. I have a confession... When I am buying nut butters I always turn them over and look at the base of the jar to choose the darker coloured jars. What can I say, I'm quite particular about my nut butter! That's what I love about Keen they definitely spend more time making their products and this means the flavour is far superior than mass produced nut butters (ahem... Meridian). So I suppose one advantage of making your own nut butter is that you can control the flavour and get exactly what you want.
[ Yummy dark roast on my cashew
butter.]
I chose cashews because they are slightly softer than the likes of almonds, Brazil or hazelnuts and might put less pressure on my average food processor. I also tried to minimise burnt out processor risk by giving it a rest every 5 minutes or so.
I was so pleased with my vanilla cashew butter. Even though I cook and bake a lot it still amazes me that the ingredient you start with is very different to the final product. I got such delight from making my own nut butter- but that might just be me!
[My jar of cashew butter in recycled
Keen nutrition jar.]
I worked out how much the batch cost me to make. I used a pretty bog standard 200g bag of Sainsbury's cashews that cost £2.50. I also bought some vanilla pods , for the amount I used it worked out at 75p for half a vanilla pod. The amount This made didn't fill a standard Keen nut butter jar which I recycled for the occasion (if anyone wants some I am coming down with empty nut butter jars!!). In total my homemade vanilla cashew butter cost £3.25 for just the raw ingredients. Of course this doesn't include the electricity, jars or equipment. Keen normal flavours usually cost £3.50. So yes homemade may be slightly cheaper but for the sake of 25p and lots of time and effort saved I will continue to buy my locally made nut butter.
Not only will you be buying a tasty product but you will also be supporting a local company that employs local people and if that isn't a good reason to spend an extra 25p I don't know what is!
METHOD/RECIPE- Dark roast vanilla cashew butter
Ingredients-
200g unsalted cashew nuts
1/2 vanilla pod
Method-
1. Preheat oven to 180•C.
2. Place cashews on baking tray and place in oven for 15 minutes or so depending on how rich a flavour you want. Shake the nuts every 5 minutes to brown evenly.
3. Allow to cool for 10 minutes.
4. Throw in food processor.
5. Cut vanilla pod in half horizontally and Keep half for next time. Slice pod in half length way, expose inside and scrape out seeds with the back of a knife.
6. Add vanilla seeds to nuts in food processor.
7. Turn processor on full for 5 minutes , scrape down sides with spatula and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
8. Repeat step 7 until nuts have been processed for approximately 20 minutes.
9. First the nuts will be broken up to crumbs, then to a dust. You will start to see some "sticking" at the base of the bowl as oil is released from the nuts.
10. The nuts may form a ball at some stage but don't worry just continue processing.
11. When it starts to look creamy and liquidity I urge you to keep processing for an extra 5 minutes. Those 5 minutes are worth it to make the butter runnier and even more delicious.
12. Spoon carefully into a sterilised jar (look up how to on Google- I usually don't sterilise properly. Just dishwasher then fill with boiling water from kettle and allow to sit for few mins then pour out water and air dry upside down. This is enough to kill the bugs don't worry.)
13. Will keep for way longer than it will last. If you are really paranoid you can store in the fridge but I am a bit of a rebel and keep all my nut butters in the cupboard (Cold almond butter is weird!!).
What to do with your cashew butter-
It tastes like cake mixture so a finger or spoon is preferable.
- eat with a spoon (generally my method of choice)
- spoon onto sliced apple for tasty protein rich snack
- stir into hot porridge
- drizzle over yoghurt and fruit for breakfast
- spread on toast
- make my previous recipe of cashew energy balls
- smoosh open a medjool date and fill with cashew butter- actual heaven
- go back with the spoon for a third time that day... Yep that's me.
If you come up with some exciting ways of using your cashew butter let me know and I will post some of your suggestions!
[Cashew butter with some apple. Great
wee snack.]
UPDATE
Really enjoyed doing a sports nutrition talk for Queen's University Belfast widening participation programme. The programme is focused on secondary school boys exploring how sport and leadership can be used to access university and higher education. They will come back for a week every year and do sport, education and leadership workshops. The theme of this particular year was American football and the boys were really enjoying exploring a new sport. I focused mainly on general healthy eating and introduced the concept of fuel and recovery.
Next week I will be doing something similar for a group of first year boys from the same schools and I am really looking forward to it. Hopefully I can improve my presentation and make it more interactive.
[As usual lots of hand action when
talking! Hopefully I don't bore the
poor boys too much!]
I am taking a leave of absence from university for a year to focus on athletics and would love to continue to provide nutrition talks and information for schools, sports and youth groups. If you or anyone you know is interested please do not hesitate to contact me.
I am also looking forward to the Queen's Sport Blues awards dinner tonight. It's a great night to get glam and have a laugh with some of the athletics team.
Thank you for reading and have a wonderful rest of the week,
Katie.
Keen Nutrition nut butters can be purchased throughout Ireland and the UK. Check out their website for stockists. http://keennutbutter.com
You can purchase the Deliciously Ella app from iTunes App Store. http://deliciouslyella.com
