Mmm peanut butter

I make my own peanut butter once or twice a week, depending on how much we feel like eating. I usually buy raw peanuts with the skin on, dry roast them in a frying pan until little black spots appear and then blend blend blend! This takes about 10 minutes, sometimes longer, but the end result is always amazingly delicious. I ahven't bought any peanut butter from the shop in aggges. The homemade stuff does go very solid in the fridge though (no added oil). Which brings me to my next point.

I was given a kg bag of roasted unsalted peanuts by my stepmum (hooray! I was just about to go to the shop to buy more) so I decided to just make the peanut butter from these instead (I don't really like to eat peanuts by themselves).

I stuck two cups of the roasted unsalted peanuts in the blender, turned it on, and in no time at all I had a smooth butter. I didn't even have to scrape down the sides! Ahh and it tastes like the store bought stuff but better. I'm assuming it butterised so quickly because they are roasted with oil. It also doesn't solidify too much in the fridge.

Mmm, peanut butter.

Homemade peanut butter and homemade choko jam on home baked bread. Smug! Hahaha.

Peanut Butter Coconut Cream Pie

Otherwise known as a heart attack. And it was sooo worth it.

Peanut Butter Coconut Cream Pie

Serves 12

Ingredients:

1 pre baked chocolate tart case (I made an oatmeal-buckwheat flour base but didn't write down the ingredients...make your favourite, just add 1 tbsp cocoa powder.

Filling

1 cup peanut butter (I used homemade)

125g vegan cream cheese at room temperature

1/2 cup coconut cream (put a can of coconut cream in the fridge for a few hours. Take it out and open and carefully spoon the thick cream off the top)

Scant 1/2 cup dark brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

Ganache Topping

100g 85% dark chocolate broken up

2 tbsp rice syrup

1/4 cup almond milk

1/4 cup coconut cream

toasted chopped peanuts

Method:

Prepare your crust. I put mine in a springform cake pan.

Put all filling ingredients in a food processor and process until combined. This will get really thick! Though I forgot to bring the cream cheese to room temperature first so that may have had an impact.

Pour into crust and put in the fridge for a few hours or until set.

Meanwhile, make the ganache topping!

Heat the two milks on the stove until boiling. Take off heat and stir in the rice syrup and chocolate. Stir until chocllate is melted - it'll go quite thick. Pour on top of set pie and sprinkle toasted chopped peanuts on top. Put back in the fridge until set.

Serve and enjoy. Every. Bite.

Bring it on! I'm going to try and make this deliciousness last all week. It's very very rich (as you'd expect) and quite high in fat so go easy on it!

I love to use this coconut cream. I probaably shouldn't, but I eat it from the can. Don't let me make curry hahaha. It just tastes so damn good!

Cashew nut butter

I've been meaning to make my own nut butters at home for a while now. I always sort of thought you needed a fancy schmancy hardcore blender like a vitamix or something to make them, but you really don't.

First, I got 150g whole raw cashew nuts (just over 1 cup) and put them in a dry frying pan (no oil) and toasted them until they started to brown. Don't burn them!

I pulsed them a few times in my normal everyday food processor from the 70's so not to stress it out too much at once.

Blended for a minute or two and it turned into dust and started clumping slightly.

I gave it a rest every now and then, to take the pictures and not burn out the motor.

Gradually it clumped up as the oils started releasing from the nuts.

Dough? Keep blending!

Suddenly it will turn into smooth smooth buttery goodness.

I stored it in an airtight container in the fridge. I only lost 10g of nuts from it, mainly from me taste testing and whatever I couldn't scrape off. I didn't measure it in cups, but my guess is the yield would be just over half a cup.

At shops I've seen cashew nut butter cost anywhere between $6 and $10 for the same amount (150g), this little batch I blended up only cost me $3. If I didn't buy stupidly expensive nuts from the fruit shop, it would probably cost even less.

Oh, and it's absolutely delicious.

I put a blob on top of some Banana Rye Muffins I made today. I'll post the recipe another time :) There's too much in this post as it is!

Being in the fridge, it does go really solid, but I don't really care about that. Next I might try almond or brazil nut butter :)