When we knew my mother was going to be able to come to England for the wedding, I put in an order with her for five jars of Smucker’s Natural creamy peanut butter. Americans, though they probably wouldn’t put it this way unless they’ve lived out of country, are obsessed with peanut butter. It’s definitely a staple food, or maybe a food group of its own. PBJs, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter and banana sandwiches (especially as The King loved, with the banana mashed and the whole thing fried smeared in either butter or bacon fat, as various sources claim), peanut butter milk shakes, Reese’s Pieces and peanut butter cups (I actually remember this one) and Nutter Butters. And when we were down to the last jar within only two months, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands, UK brand Sun Pat being a disgusting claimant to the name peanut butter and not wanting to pay exorbitant sums for American brands chock full of hydrogenated oils. So I looked for a recipe online and discovered that peanut butter, the way I like it, is super easy to make. 1 kilo roasted peanuts, tiny bit of salt and 3T oil. Food processor. Done.
It has now been months since we ran out of store-bought peanut butter, and I’ve been working hard to perfect my homemade peanut butter. I can’t seem to be consistent with it – sometimes it’s perfect, perfectly salted, just the right amount of sugar (barely any), the perfect mixture of oil to peanuts. Others it’s horrible, a flavorless paste or too salty or gloppy from too much oil. Meh. I don’t know what to do to get it right because when I buy salted peanuts I can’t guarantee the saltiness of the peanuts, either within or across brands. I also can’t figure out how much salt to put in, and at what stage, to avoid over-processing when using unsalted.
I haven’t made peanut butter for a while as I was a bit demoralized by the process. I have two bags of unsalted from Holland and Barrett and should get on that today as we’re out of peanut butter again and the jar just came out of the dish washer. We’re still using one of the Smucker’s jars. ; )
i really enjoyed this post – the title was really interesting as was the story. you have a cool life, Mrs. J!
I keep meaning to pick up some peanuts and give this a whirl, I think the kids would get a kick out of it. I want to do butter too (in the food processor) just for a fun experiment. But I haven’t
I just emailed Naz to see if she wanted some peanut butter in her next care package! We are sort of obsessed. But only because it’s so good!
Biebe, once you get it down you won’t believe how easy it is! The recipe I posted is a bit off, I use more oil than that, maybe 4 or 5?, so it’s like the stuff you have to stir up if you leave it in the cupboard. Now I just sort of glug some oil in and add a tiny bit if it doesn’t mix well within about 3 minutes.
Make sure you get quality peanuts, and if they’re too pale then roast them on super low heat for a little bit, maybe 10 minutes? I tried to pan toast them once but I think the heat was too high. Cheap peanuts make cheap peanut butter.
I noted that an American friend who came to stay with a neighbor (in the Big City sense, they’re 15 minutes away) of mine bought crumpets and peanut butter. Hahahaha!!
Also, butter is wicked easy, I did it on accident with a stick blender trying to make whipped cream!!
I keep meaning to write Naz but I have to get to a card shop! I want to send her a cool postcard of my neighborhood (god, I keep having to correct my spelling to American! I’m expected to spell in UK English at work)!
It’s ok, I’m pretty sure I can read British
Yeah, probs. ; )
I wonder if I could do some half pint jars for Christmas. Maybe with a mini-loaf of bread or a half pint of homemade jam… We were thinking of doing some flavored vodkas or homebrew so this would go along with the theme. Maybe booze for the men food for the ladies (that way they can all share)
Hmmm…maybe find out what they’d prefer? In an understated way, of course. Maybe more ladies would want booze? Who knows! Aram just stuck a few blackberries in some leftover vodka we have. I’ll have to try to remember to tell you what we think of it.
Mini loaves are cute, btw.
It’s all couples so they’ll be getting both, it’s more just to give everyone something to open (and to make wrapping/labeling easy for me).
I made some mini blueberry-lemon teacakes the other day that were sooooo good. But made with heavy cream and lemon glaze so a once in a while treat.
you know 101cookbooks.com right? she has a really delicious vegan cookie I actually like! no flour, no white sugar, no eggs, no dairy. bit of dark chocolate, but I bet you can take that out if the kids won’t like it! can’t rmeember the name but it has coconut in it. and her hermit recipe looks awesome!
Why don’t you try buying unsalted peanuts and then simply add your desired amount of salt. That way you can eliminate the ‘random salt variable’ with buying salted peanuts and have a consistent frame of reference as you perfect your recipe.
I agree, Lance! Tried to find them but found it difficult to find here, or I just haven’t looked hard enough. I didn’t want to have to go out of my way to find them as the goal here was ease and “unsalted” seemed to equal “raw”.
But…hey! I just remembered Brixton Whole Foods, where I have been shopping for a while…I’ll bet they have some. Thanks for the reminder!
Also, I should write a peanut butter update as I now seem to have got the hang of the whole thing.
Hard to find? really?! Bizaar. You can pick up unsalted (and salted) peanuts at almost any grocery store here. Raw would taste a bit ‘earthy’ for me…and I hate the skins!! Good luck!
I know, it’s the same in America! I’ve only found raw ones in fancy shops, or whole food shops (it took me 2 years here to find one), and the middle eastern shops. However, the quality isn’t always up to snuff, which is why I’ve stuck with the salty K&P ones b/c I know they’re good.