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With blogs, Facebook, Twitter, social media in general to is all too easy to create a positive, ideal version of yourself. You post pictures of your runs and workout accomplishments not the times when you’re sitting on your couch on hour three of a Modern Family marathon. You post pictures when you have your hair done/make-up on, not the times you just rolled out of bed. You share overwhelmingly tasty recipes because that’s all that ever comes out of your kitchen, right???
…wrong. Well, at least in my world.
Over the course of the past year as I’ve gotten more and more in to cooking/baking/experimenting in the kitchen there are plenty of times when recipes come together in an amazing way. Then there are those times when they…well…just don’t. This was one of those times.
So because I am only human (and coming to realize I can’t do everything perfectly all the time) I wanted to share a recent “Pinterest Fail.”
I’ve seen many a recipe for homemade nut butters and the process seems all too easy. In a mere ten minutes you can create your very own maple cinnamon walnut butter or almond Butter with vanilla bean, honey and sea salt.
So, reaching the end of our current nut butter supply I decided to try making my own before rushing off to the store to buy it.
Last time he went to Costco, Z came home with a whole bag of hazelnuts. Despite my overwhelming love for anything involving them I’ve never actually bought any.
Since I had quite a decent amount I decided they would be my nut of choice for my homemade nut butter experiment.
In an ideal world this type of thing is made using a food processor. I however lack such a tool so instead used my little Ninja.
The Steps
Add 1.5 cups of hazelnuts to processor
You can roast them ahead of time if you like. This apparently releases some of the nutty flavor and loosens the skin coating. For good old-fashioned raw butter, you can omit that step.
blend, blend, and blend some more
From everything I read it DOES take some time for the finely ground flour to finally release its oil and turn in to a creamy nut butter. But after half an hour I never really got there. Sure, it was slightly creamy, but nothing like the pictures I saw online.
The Verdict
I think my equipment was just not cut out for this. As trustworthy as my little Ninja is I think this was a big job for it to tackle. It doesn’t usually run more than a few seconds at a time and I could feel the motor heating up quite a bit.
I would stop every few seconds to scrape down the sides to encourage proper mixing but that creamy dreamy nut butter never revealed itself (I can now see why manufacturers add oil to their products).
To the finished product I added 1 tsp of maple syrup, some vanilla liquid stevia and 1 crank of my sea salt grinder. Despite it not turning out how I pictured in my head it wasn’t a complete failure either. It melted right in to my hot bowl of oatmeal this morning.
Perhaps a food processor needs to go on the wedding registry?
I want to know…
Have you ever made your own nut butter? Any tips/tricks for me?
What is your favorite kind of nut butter?
If you could create your own new flavor, what would it be?
The Adventures of Z & K 
Ok, sooooo, this definitely shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes (however, I do have a food processor so I’m sure it will take longer in a Ninja, but not 30 minutes!). My guess? You need to buy a nut that doesn’t have the skin. Yep, that was your problem. Try again,no skins!
Ah ha! Will select more carefully next time.