How To Make Peanut Butter
I like peanut butter. I must say though that the peanut butter your mother starts you on sticks with you. We were, for better or for worse, a Jif family. Maybe it was Annette Funicello, maybe it was that the others out there just didn’t taste that great. When it came to smooth vs. crunchy, we always came up smooth. It was terrible having to have PB&J sandwiches at someone else house especially when they were Skippy crunchy people. That just wasn’t the same. When living in Europe, you can bet that it only got worse. It takes time to find a peanut butter close enough to the one you like. Suffice to say there was not a Jif surrogate found. It was a perfect time to learn how to make peanut butter.
How To Make Peanut Butter – The Four Stages of Grinding
It doesn’t take a culinary degree to make peanut butter. It is pretty much a 1 ingredient operation plus a food processor. If you are one of those folks like me who doesn’t mind the addition of a little salt or sugar, then it is a 2 or 3 ingredient operation. As the peanuts are ground, they go through 4 stages – Whole – Mealy – Sticky Mealy – and Butter. You can see the stages come and go with the final formation of a beautiful, creamy peanut butter. If you are in the crunchy camp, simply process the peanuts for less time.
How To Make Peanut Butter – Mixing It Up
Of course, when you make peanut butter at home, you can create a variety of peanut butters that you love. Simply by replacing the plain roasted, salted with peanuts with those that have been sugar coated makes an incredibly delicious peanut butter. If I am using sugar coated peanuts, I add a dash of vanilla and a dash of cinnamon. This is such a delicious peanut butter – perfect for sandwiches, but it also brings apples and peanut butter to a new level. So tasty!
How To Make Peanut Butter – The Video and Recipe
The ‘How To Make Peanut Butter’ Video is below. The sugar roasted peanuts are used in the video, but you can simply use regular peanuts. The full recipe follows.
- 1 lb sugar roasted peanuts
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- pinch of salt
- To the bowl of a food processor add the peanuts, vanilla and cinnamon. Pulse the mixture to break them up then process the peanuts on high until a peanut butter with your desired texture is formed.
- Remove from the bowl and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
- If a plain peanut butter is desired, use 1 lb roasted, unsalted peanuts. Omit the vanilla and cinnamon. Add salt and sugar to taste.
Keep Eating! Keep Innovating!
Do you know how to make peanut butter? What do you add to it? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook.
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