Homemade Maple & Brown Sugar Almond Butter

So, nut butter always seemed like one of those things that was so. hard. to make at home. But really? Is it now? After taking a trip to the nicest Kroger in my town and grinding my own peanut butter in their natural foods/bulk bins section, I was swayed a little bit. It looked easy, at least with that fancy grocery-store grinder. I resolved to try it at home “one day.” You know how it goes. One day never came. It was just so easy to keep buying my favorite natural peanut butter from Whole Foods that I didn’t think any more about it. Until I ran out. Whole Foods is a 75 minute drive away. No good.

Enter: creativity, complements of the internet. Guess what? Homemade nut butter isn’t that hard! And you can totally make fancy nut butters for a fraction of the cost of the store-bought non-peanut butters. Sorry, but I’m not going to spend $5-8 on a small jar of almond/cashew/walnut butter or fancy flavored peanut butter. Let’s hope we’re not seeing prices like that on regular peanut butter now that prices are on the rise.

After making a quick trip to Sam’s to stock up on nuts, I went to work. I raided my pantry to see what I could find to fancy up my almond butter and came up with a classic oatmeal combo: maple and brown sugar.

A bit of patience and a food processor and you are all set.

While I can’t promise I’ll never go back to the store-bought stuff, I have been inspired to try more flavor combinations and even experiment with different kinds of nuts to see what we like best!

Reader Question ~ What’s your favorite kind of nut butter? What should I try to make next?

Homemade Maple & Brown Sugar Almond Butter

Servings: makes 16 ounces
Time: 25 minutes
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[inspired by The Lean Green Bean]

Ingredients:

1 pound/3 cups raw, unsalted almonds
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1 tablespoon brown sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast for 6-8 minutes. The almonds should smell fragrant. In a food processor, combine toasted almonds, syrup, and brown sugar. Process for 10-12 minutes, or until desired consistency is reached.

Notes:

At first, you’ll have to scrape the sides of the food processor constantly because it’ll be mostly “dusty.” Then, after a few minutes, it should start clumping and from there will get smoother and smoother the longer you let it go. It just takes a bit of patience but it is so worth it!