Inexpensive Homemade Specialty Nut Butters

My family loves nut butter. We eat about a pound and a half a week (sometimes more!). Though we love the nut butters themselves, we don't always love the price. Especially for those wonderful "fancy" nut butters. Here is an example: a 16 ounce jar of cinnamon raisin peanut butter from Wild Friends Foods costs seven dollars. That doesn't seem like much until you look at the price of homemade peanut butter, which is easy and fun to make, not to mention cheap!

Wild Friends Foods Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter

Ingredients: Peanuts, raisins, cinnamon, roasted peanut oil, organic agave, sea salt.

Cost: $6.99

Homemade Cinnamon Raisin Peanut Butter

Ingredients: Peanuts, raisins, cinnamon, organic maple syrup (or agave), sea salt.

Cost: $4.91 (not on sale), but I was able to make it for $3.59, because some of my ingredients were on sale!

This may not seem like much, but if you are like my family, eating a pound and a half a week, then you may end up buying about 78 jars of this stuff a year! Buying the store-bought version would cost nearly 550 dollars a year, while making it yourself would only cost 280 dollars a year (based on the on-sale version, which is often the case).

So, save that extra 270 dollars a year, and let's get started!

Step 1: Gathering Your Ingredients and Materials

For this recipe, you will need:

16 ounces of dry roasted unsalted peanuts

1/4 cup of golden raisins, packed

2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon organic 100% pure maple syrup or agave (or even honey for non-vegans)

1/4 teaspoon salt

Materials:

1 food processor

Measuring cups and spoons

Step 2: Beginning the Blending of the Peanuts

Add all of the peanuts to your food processor. Pulse the processor 30 times. The pulsed peanuts should look like the third picture.

Step 3: Blending for 30 More Seconds

Process the peanuts (don't pulse) for 30 seconds. The peanuts should look like the first picture. Scrape down the sides.

Step 4: Blending for 30 More Seconds

Process the peanuts for 30 more seconds, and scrape the sides of the processor after that time.The peanuts should look something like the first picture.

Step 5: Blend for 2 Minutes

Process the peanuts for 1-2 minutes, until they become the consistency of picture. Your peanuts should start to look like freshly ground peanut butter, and the peanut oils should be released.

Step 6: Adding the Raisins

Add 1/8 of a cup of raisins to the peanuts (this is half of all of your raisins). Process this for about 1 minute, until most of the raisins are finely chopped and incorporated into your peanut butter. After the blending, the butter should look like the second picture.

Step 7: Adding the Flavor!

To the peanut butter, add all of the salt, cinnamon, and maple syrup. Process until combined (30 seconds to one minute).

Step 8: Adding the Final Raisins

Finally, add the rest of the raisins to the mixture (1/8 of a cup) and pulse until the raisins are combined with the mixture but still whole raisins. This is your final product (shown in picture #2)!

Step 9: Packaging and Enjoying!

Put the peanut butter in a jar with a lid (if you haven't already eaten it straight out of the blender, that is), and store at room temperature. This wonderful spread is great on bread, apples, oatmeal, and any other food that you would normally have with peanut butter.

Now, enjoy this delicious and inexpensive butter, and buy that gift for your loved one while your at it!