Peanut butter
I made dark roasted crunchy peanut butter with Achill Island sea salt tonight. Blend in the back to show that I didn't just buy peanut butter and call it homemade.
Edit: Thought maybe I'd make instructions a little clearer:
Preheat oven to 180C.
Lay 1kg of peanuts on as many baking trays to have them all in a single layer. Roast. Check and flip every 10 minutes for about 30-40 minutes or less to desired darkness. Make sure to pick out the ones that are roasting faster than the others or they will burn and it will ruin your peanut butter! Or you can pick them out before blending.
Remove from oven, let cool for at least 10 minutes.
Chuck roasted peanuts in food processor/blender (reserve about 200g for crunchy peanut butter) and watch the magic happen. It will go from full size peanuts to a crumble that sticks to the sides (use a spatula to scrape down), and then it's start to get smooth.
Add about 2 tsp (or to taste, do 1/2 tsp at a time until desired saltiness) of flaked sea salt, blend. Add the reserve peanuts and blend to desired crunchiness.
/edit
Edit: I guess it's technically not cooking, but I wasn't sure where else to share this... Recipe and all.
65 replies
Oven cooked peanuts
It's cooking
so.....that's it?? peanut-butter is just peanuts in the blender?? there is nothing more to it??
In the Netherlands most of the PB you can buy is 100% peanut in the ingredient list and you just choose smooth or with chunks.
fun-fact: Butter is a protected name in the Netherlands and as a result of that, they can not have peanut-butter. Just pindakaas (peanut-cheese and no, i'm not making this up)
Yeah, though many like Calve, I prefer the home-brands. But in Sweden it's less common and not nearly as good. So this could be perfect for making peanut sauce as well.
Right, they're indeed all called peanut cheese but I figured I'd just sound crazy if I said it like that... Helaas, pindakaas.
I have a t-shirt that says "Unfortunately peanut butter".
Apparently the butter lobby is stronger than the cheese lobby. Somewhat ironic, given they both come from milk.
In the US, many brands also have some oil and / or sugar.
If you don’t have to stir or refrigerate it, what (general) you use isn’t one of them.
On a decent jar of peanut butter the ingredients are just peanuts and salt. In the US you can get it with a lot more ingredients for cheaper if you want. I've never made it, but I eat a ton of the stuff.
Same here in Australia. My favourite brands are
Mayer'sMayver's, Simply Nuts, and Pic's.It's just so much cheaper to make than to buy now. A 380g jar can be $6.30 AUD, when I can get a 1kg bag of peanuts for... $10 AUD? And it's 1kg of peanut butter.
I never ever saw Mayvers in Perth. Had to move to Singas before I discovered it. Choice!
Not sure why this is the first comment I am seeing mention salt. Unsalted peanut butter is rare, and definitely tastes worse. I am sure people sensitive to sodium or whatever appreciate it, though.
I make it in a food processor once every 2 weeks or so. Thats it. I buy salted peanuts, so literally just dump the bag of peanuts into the thing, hit the button and watch for about 5 minutes
You can make other nut butters as well! We make both peanut and almond butter at home. We add a bit of olive oil to the almonds to help them grind.
Sure is. I love dark roasted peanut butter, so whatever peanuts you get (I got blanched and de-skinned. I think some people use raw), roast them to whatever darkness you want.
It's pretty magical to see it go from whole peanuts to crumbly peanuts to smooth butter.
Thanks for the conformation! Now I gotta do this
ps: Don't call me, I'm out buying peanut!
Have fun!! Drop questions here if you need any help. It's nearly bed time for me, so will have to get back to you in the morning if you're not making it straight away, haha.
I am glad you said it, i was thinking it and i felt like an idiot for not knowing.
It's even worse .... i felt like an idiot for not
knowinghaving done it alreadyI really don't know what I was expecting, but definately not this...
neither did I, but if this is it then i'll go out and buy peanuts today
yup
I tried to make sense of this without the second half of the sentence, and it had me very confused. "Who has a thousand baking trays?"
1 gram of peanut per tray? That's basically 1 peanut per tray. I suppose peanuts like their personal space.
Some would say that many trays is crazy, its peanuts to me.
I'll allow it.
Peanut butter is just blendered up peanuts? I would have thought there was more to it than that.
That is how you make "natural" peanut butter. The oils will separate and need to be mixed with each use. A lot of store bought peanut butter also include emulsifiers to keep the oil from separating, and often sugar or other sweeteners.
You can put it in the fridge to counteract this and in my experience it remains spreadable, unlike preblended natural pb I sometimes buy. This might have to do with how much oil is extracted from the nuts in each process, however, so YMMV.
also it's so YMMY
:)
I have never had issues with pre-blended PB not spreading. You just mix the oil separation back in and it spreads fine. You don't need to refrigerate it; mixing it before use is not much labour.
I think OP made the kind that will settle and have to be stirred before use. Maybe the no stir kind takes a few extra steps?
After 24h of it sitting, it surprisingly has not separated. I'll give it a few more days. Perhaps these were low-oil peanuts. 🤔 Still tastes pretty good, though.
The instant change from loose peanut gravel to smooth peanut butter is one of my favorite moments in cooking. Something similar happens with peanut sauce, too.
Liar!
Clearly you just smeared some store bought peanut butter on the blender for clout
(Seriously tho, it looks delicious)
Real question. How does one flip small stuff during baking? Your instructions say to flip the peanuts. Lots of baked things are supposed to be flipped halfway through. Flipping peanuts or sweet potato fries is random and haphazard at best. Do you have any techniques that are fast and thorough?
Ya caught me. :'(
I used two silicone spatulas to push them around. My oven has hot spots, so I had to keep checking and moving darker nuts away and paler nuts to the hot spots. Then I just used a spoon to scoop out the ones I didn't want to roast anymore.
Too much work to flip them all one by one, so just rolled them around and hoped for the best.
My less than complete method for stuff like this is just shake the tray a bunch and whatever flips, flips.
Put another pan on top and flip the whole thing over? Just my thought, I've never actually tried it.
Wait until you try fries in an air fryer. Even if that's all you use it for, it'll be worth it.
Home made P Butter is so good I gained a buncha weight. I don't make it anymore....
Am I an idiot or are you flipping each individual peanut every ten min?
You don’t have dedicated peanut tweezers?
One assumes they stirred them.
Even if I had the time, I would not do this, haha.
Super cool!
I grind my own, which I always thought was a big deal. But roasting it as well, wow, that's impressive!
Throw it all out on the pan and let the oven do its thing!
What blender is this? Last time I tried my blender couldn't cope and I had extra chunky peanut butter (which was not the goal...).
I don't think it's sold anymore, but this is the closest one I can find:
https://modesens.com/product/ninja-bn701-professional-plus-blender-with-autoiq-gray-102685300
I don't know the website and can't find it on the website I bought it on, so buyer beware! I think mine's 1000W or so. I'll check tomorrow.
Edit: 1200W! Crushes ice with ease.
As someone truly snobby about their peanut butter, this fills my heart with joy.
If you ever want to really go wild, get a long wooden spoon and big Dutch oven, and roast them over a fire.
That'd be fun! Might have to give it a go next time I go camping. My yard isn't big enough for a fire, and too many trees/vines overhanging.
I learned how to make this from millhouse but did not try the recipe yet.
Looks good, but I'm allergic to peanut butter jars. /s
I like to do sunflowers or walnuts butter. Just made a thai peanut butter noodles with fresh pb, amazing!
Oh, I will have to give it a try with walnuts. My partner is mildly allergic to walnuts only if he eats them, so we have a lot of leftover walnuts from bags of nut/trail mix. Any tips, or treat it much like this peanut butter (roast, blend, salt, etc.) ?
Same, just watch your blend. It will heat up. I use a food processor instead.
I'll give my blender a shot, and if it fails, I'll drag out my dinosaur hand-me-down food processor. Thank you!
Nice! Thanks for sharing the recipe. Do you happen to know what's the purpose of the initial blanch? I.e. why not just roast them right away?
I think it is really just to remove the skin. You can use raw (skin on), but I imagine it would just mean having little bits of skin wedged between your teeth and gums...
I used to make peanut butter with unblanched/unroasted peanuts (+salt+honey) and the skin pretty much gets blended. I hadn't even considered that until now!
But blanched peanuts roast better. I think that's the real reason you do it, if you roast raw peanuts the skin turns to shrapnel
I feel like I might have done this once a very long time ago, and with the fan going inside, the little bits of skins started to get blown around. Makes for an irritating clean up.
Some of the burnt skins also stay on the peanut and are annoying to remove. Gross!
Ah Yeah makes sense - thanks!
Nice one, looks good!
Thank you!