Almond butter the right way--not for the weak of thumb

Since I'm on this anti-candida yeast diet, I pretty much eat meat, veggies, some nuts, and a few grains. No sugar (which rules out normal peanut butter) and even then peanuts are "not recommended" because they often contain mold. I eat almond butter on rice cakes a lot for breakfast. Filling, rich, and portable, but expensive! If you go through almond butter like I do, $7 for an 8-ounce jar adds up. So you can imagine that when I saw a 3-pound bag of almonds at Costco for $10, I thought, "Gee, I have a pretty good food processor. Almond butter can't be that hard to make." I read around online, and there are 3 basic steps to making almond butter:

1. Roasting the almonds
2. Grinding the almonds
3. Adding oil and salt

Most of the instructions I read said that almond butter is SOOOO much better if you blanch the almonds first, so of course I had to try it. Blanching almonds involves covering them with boiling water to loosen the skins, then peeling the skins off by hand, nut by nut. One recipe I found said it takes 5 minutes to peel 10-15 ounces of almonds. HAHAHAHAHA! It took me an hour and a half to peel the 10 ounces or so you see here. Maybe there's some magic trick to getting the skins loose enough so they just slip off, but I don't know what it is. If you actually do want to try this at home, find a good movie to watch first, or bribe your kids to peel the almonds for you.

I then roasted the naked almonds by putting them in the oven at 350 for 8 minutes on a baking sheet covered with foil. I also roasted some with the peel on just for a taste comparison. I put the blanched almonds in the food processor for about 7 minutes. I did not need to add oil to those--the butter was pretty creamy without it. I did add about 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. I did the same to the almonds with skin, although I did need to add about 2 tablespoons of sesame oil to get that butter to be more creamy plus a little stevia extract. As always, a little stevia goes a long way, so taste as you add it.

The result? Lots of almond butter for about $5. You can compare the $7 jar size to the amount I made on the left. I'm guessing I made about three times as much butter for 2/3 the cost. Oh, and the almond butter from the blanched almonds is SIGNIFICANTLY tastier than the stuff with skins. The skins are kind of bitter. I'm pretty sure the store-bought stuff has skins in it, too. I bet if I tried to buy almond butter made from blanched almonds, it would be $15 for 10 ounces. It's labour-intensive, like that coffee processed by cats. So, really, I saved myself $15 or so. Hm. I'm still trying to explain the benefits to my blistered thumb.

Comments

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[Amy]

Thanks for the tip, Betsy!

[Betsy]

If you boil the almonds a bit longer, until they are a bit puffy looking, the almond will pop right out of the skin. Just squeeze the bigger end and the nut will come out of the pointed end. If they require peeling, boil a minute or so longer. Since you're roasting them anyway, a bit of cooking of the nut is ok.

[Suzanne]

Um, wow. Where did you hear about the cat poop coffee? The almond butter sounds great though. Perhaps we could train my cats to peel the almonds for you?