Creamy Dreamy Almond Butter!

Ok, so on my 4th try, I think I've finally done it -- I've made creamy, dreamy, drool-worthy almond butter! And to think I nearly gave up entirely!

One of the reasons for us buying the Blendtec blender (which is THE best blender in the whole wide world) was so that we could make our own nut butters. However, that didn't go exactly according to plan.

Try #1 Failure: Used 1 cup of almonds straight from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. Obviously this wasn't a large enough amount for my big 3 quart blender jar and so it just didn't work.

Try #2 Failure: Used 3 cups of almonds straight from the bulk bins at Whole Foods. I blended one cycle at level 1, then several cycles at level 5, scraping down the sides each time. This turned out okay, but wasn't creamy and was difficult to spread. I think I should have blended for a longer time.

Try #3 Failure: Used 3 cups of almonds from the bulk bins at Whole Foods, soaked for 24 hours, then dehydrated for about 12 hours. I blended the almonds one cycle at speed 1, then multiple cycles at speed 5, scraping down the sides each time. After 40 minutes of blending, I had nothing that resembled almond butter. The contents of my blender jar were steaming (so much for RAW almond butter!) and I was super frustrated. I added some coconut oil, and eventually some water, and what I ended up with was some sort of watery tasting almond paste (think toothpaste) and it was disgusting! What a waste of perfectly good almonds! :( I think the real problem here was that my almonds were not completely dried before I tried to make the almond butter, or perhaps it was the type of almonds I used.

Try #4 Success: Used 3 cups of organic unpasteurized carmel almonds purchased from Anderson Almonds (an almond farmer in California), soaked for 24 hours and then dehydrated for 24 hours. I blended the almonds one cycle at speed 1, then several cycles at speed 5. There was very little scraping to be done and I didn't time it, but I bet it was done within 10 minutes. I didn't have to add anything to the almonds as they blended. (Ignore the little piggies in this photo!)

When it was done, I literally POURED it (with a little help from my handy dandy scraper) into the jar to put into the refrigerator! Amazing!



While I did remember to grab at least a few cell phone shots of the finished product, I didn't get any photos of the process, so I really found this post to be helpful in showing the stages the almonds go through when making nut butter. The beautiful photos give you a good idea of what to expect. I obviously used my blender and the photos here are from a food processor, but the results are similar. The only stage I didn't see while blending my almond butter was the one where a ball develops; for me it went straight from crumbly to the oils beginning to release.

So now I have creamy, dreamy almond butter and fresh baked bread in the house! Guess you don't have to guess what I'm about to go have for a snack! :)