Nut Butters

[Chris Hennes]

We have a multi-page topic on Peanut Butter, and even a topic on Almond Butter, but apparently the other nut butters get no love. Except from me!

When I visited the Central Market in Dallas last weekend I picked up a jar of cashew butter which I have been enjoying quite a bit this last week. Its major failing is that in their overzealous attempts to be "100% pure," the only ingredient is cashews. Wait, no salt? Not even a tiny little bit?!? And sure enough, straight out of the jar it is a little bland: not terrible, but a little salt sure would help. Well, that is easy enough to arrange, I just added a half teaspoon to the jar and gave it a good stir. Voila! Much better.

Anyone else a big fan of other nut butters? Do anything interesting/weird/etc. with them?

[Pam R]

Not a nut, I realize, but when I was a kid I was a fan of sunflower seed butter. I've seen it in stores recently, but have yet to buy a jar.

[prasantrin]

Not all are nuts, but I like:

kinako butter

pumpkin seed butter

black sesame butter

cashew butter

I can't remember the others that I particularly like.

[andiesenji]

Here's a previous nut butter topic, Chris.

Note that I had my oar in there as usual.

I love nut butters and have tried just about everything possible and certainly can't recall all the combinations I have tried.

The only one that I really found to be less than optimum was a butter made with Brazil nuts. However, I think it was possible that they were not as fresh as they should have been and the result may have been because of incipient rancidity.

Hazelnut butter is better if the nuts are toasted a bit and they do need a bit of salt.

I like almond butter made with almonds that have been boiled briefly in heavily salted water and toasted in the oven (the way I make salt-glazed almonds) and with the skins intact. Nothing bland about this product.

I always start my nut butters by putting the nuts through a meat grinder, either electric or hand-cranked.

I then transfer them to a food processor. I can use my Vita-Mix but have to keep the batches quite small and it is not as easy to extract from the blender as it is from the food processor.

Also, almost any nut butter can be improved by a very small amount of toasted sesame oil. Regular sesame oil works too but there is just something about the toasted oil that gives a bit more "oomph" to the flavor of the base nut without overpowering it.

And the following Healthy Nut Butters topic was in a ThirdAge bulletin I received today. Very timely.

Edited November 20, 2008 by andiesenji (log)

[JTravel]

This is our local favorite.....and success story.......http://onceagainnutbutter.com/

I think it is a very good product......and If you can buy the big tub it is an excellent price. I did not know you could freeze nut butter......but that's what it says on the webpage. Has anyone tried freezing any? It would make buying 9 pounds more attractive.

Sometimes we can get Mystery Butter, a mix of whatever was left at the end of the day. It is identified on the label and some of the mixtures are really good! It's very reasonable, which means it sells out fast.