A couple weeks ago I made homemade cashew butter, today it's almond butter. I should have started with peanut butter as the ingredients are the least expensive! I have learned quite a bit and still have some experimentation to do, but it's fun.
The jar above is for Roy, I THINK he likes eating my experiments, at least he never complains. David and Cooper are not into nut butters much, so they barely tried this one for me.
I started out with roasted, unsalted almonds from Whole Foods and salt. I wanted salt as the nut butters I like are all roasted and have salt. No oil!!!
Something I learned from the cashew butter is make it in batches, using 3 cups of nuts at a time, otherwise it's too much for the Vitamix to handle and you risk overheating the motor.
3 cups of nuts in the Vitamix and I added 2 teaspoons of salt (this turned out to be too much). I used the tamper from the start and turned the Vitamix on, then moved the dial immediately to 10 and then the power over-ride and just kept tamping it all down until it was smooth.
As I said, it was too much salt so I made another batch with no salt, then I mixed them both together by hand in a bowl. I ended up using 6 cups almonds and 2 teaspoons salt, I think I would cut the salt in half next time.
The finished product! I think next time I would make it this way: 3 cups roasted almonds and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Then if I wanted more, I could mix it in by hand.
Almond butter is very expensive, and the roasted almonds are not a great expense. It took me longer to clean the mixer out than it did to make it all, so I will definitely be making my own from now on.
A hint for cleaning out the mixer, just add hot water and dish soap then turn the mixer on high and it will clean itself, just rinse it well.
