Yesterday I ate a snack so delicious that it reminded me I had a food blog I hadn't posted in for...a very long time. Which reminded me how I'm completely failing at this blogging thing. Which made me want to write a post about my fantastic snack.
But then I realized I had a slight problem.
Said snack required homemade pecan butter, and while I certainly could just list pecan butter as an ingredient, that would leave my readers with one of two undesirable options: one, either stare at the screen in bewildered confusion, unsure of how to make homemade pecan butter; or two, go out and buy a $20-jar of the stuff. And let's be honest--who in the world wants to spend $20 on a jar of nut butter (especially when you can make a tastier version, at a fraction of the cost, at home)?
So before I post my snack of all snacks, I'm going to teach you how to make your own nut butter. (Disclaimer: this is not as amazing as I'm making it out to be. You could probably just do a google search to find out how to do it. But there are a few minor adjustments that can have a big effect on how good your nut butter tastes.)
In any event, are you ready? Here we go.
First, you'll want lots of raw nuts. For today, we're using pecans, but you could just as easily sub a different nut (or a combination of nuts, but we'll leave that for another post).
Next, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Take a large, wide-rimmed baking pan, line it with foil, and spread the nuts out in an even layer.
Place the pan in the oven and roast the nuts for about 15 minutes (it may take a little bit more or less time, so keep an eye on them), stirring occasionally to keep them from sticking and/or burning. When the nuts start to darken slightly in color, they're done! Take the pan out of the oven and let the nuts cool completely.
The cooling step takes a lot of patience. I don't have a lot of patience. But trust me, you need to let them cool. If you get really antsy, go for a walk.
When the nuts are completely cooled, throw them into a food processor and pulverize. And wait. And let the food processor do its magic. It will take some time (less time for fattier nuts, like pecans, and more time for nuts with a lower fat content, like almonds and pistachios), and you may need to stop the food processor a few times to scrape down the sides and re-incorporate everything. But you do not need to add extra oil.
I repeat: you do not need to add extra oil. It will turn into nut butter eventually. And then it will be completely natural and you can be extra proud of your one-ingredient accomplishment.
You'll be done once it turns into a nut butter consistency (well, obviously). If you like your nut butters a bit chunkier, stop it when it looks good to you. If you like your nut butters like liquid, just keep going. I promise, it'll get there. It just takes some patience. Which I don't have a lot of.
