How To Make Almond Butter

I'm a little bit partial to a bit of almond butter, so when I ran out of my Meridian Smooth Almond Butter (shock, horror), I thought I'd try to make my own nut butter! Don't confuse this lovely spread with the mass-produced peanut butter (I'm not a huge fan). I much prefer my homemade recipe - as does my one year-old!

At the moment, my fave breakfast is a couple of slices of wholemeal toast made into a sandwich - one side smothered in my plum jam and the other with almond butter. Yum! So I rummaged in the cupboard and found a 200g bag of almonds. I washed out the actual nut butter jar in preparation for the homemade stuff! 

You can make many variations too. I like to use 70% almonds and 30% cashew nuts - it changes the texture slightly. You could add maple syrup for a bit of natural sweetness, and even cinnamon - there's so much choice! Here's how to make it:

Ingredients:

200g raw almonds

Pinch of sea salt

Small amount of sugar or honey to taste

HOW TO MAKE:

Place all the almonds on a baking tray and bake for 7-10 minutes at 180C. Once the nuts are done, put them in the blender or food processor. Put the clean jar on the baking tray and put it in the oven with door open at 130C. Blitz the nuts until ground. If you like your nut butter a little crunchier, remove a couple of tablespoons now for later. Keep on blitzing the nuts a minute at a time. After each minute, scrape the nuts down the sides of the blender and carry on blitzing. After about 5 minutes, you will have the usual nut butter consistency, if not, keep the faith and keep blitzing! It will change soon! At this point add the salt and sugar if required. Blitz again and then stir in the crunchier nuts. Spoon into the jar and either store in a cool place or the fridge.