Nut butter brings out the versatility of nuts in a gorgeously creamy way. If there's a food processor or powerful blender chez vous, then it's possible to make your own, super fresh from scratch allowing the choice of nuts, whether standalones or a mix, roasted or not, blanched or with their glorious skins left on along with any flavourings like vanilla, cinnamon, cocoa powder, maple syrup, etc. The cost most likely will be lower than store bought.
The only pecans available at the supermarket were raw. Besides intensifying flavour, toasting also encourages oil release which is perfect for making nut butter. 237 millilitres (an 8 ounce fluid cup) of pecans were placed in a single layer on a shallow baking pan in a preheated oven of 177 degrees C (350 degrees F) and roasted for about ten minutes until their colour deepened during which the pan was shook a couple of times. Let cool about ten minutes. They should be warm to the touch when ready for processing.
Our food processor's capacity is small hence the paltry number of pecans, but it does boast a wattage of 750, processing them into butter in several minutes. If your appliance has less or more power, the time could be just a minute or up to twenty minutes. If yours has more room than our 2 cup one, then you can process a bigger quantity of nuts. In any case, the procedure has the same visual transition, from finely chopped to . . .
. . . their sticking to the sides of the mixer requiring scraping off with a spatula.
Repeat blending and scraping until you get the level . . .
. . . of creaminess desired. Add what you like, like fleur de sel, nutmeg, ginger among others, or as in my case for a small percentage of the total amount processed, some icing sugar and a melange of sweet spices which thickened the consistency somewhat. It can then be whirred a bit in the mixer to maintain smoothness. Tightly lidded, it will keep for up to a month in the fridge.
A muffin gets split and without much ado, receives a light pecan butter slathering.
This pecan butter is more fluid than your average peanut butter . . .
. . . allowing it to fill the fluffy crumb of the muffin to perfection. The slight bitterness of this nut butter offsets the rather sweet muffin very well. I envision marbling a cake batter, dribbling over pancakes, and topping coffee/chocolate/fig ice cream with this easy, delicious saucy pecan butter. For savoury dishes, the unsweetened version can be added to pilafs, casseroles, especially bean for a complementary protein kick, and meat or vegetarian loaf.
À la prochaine!
