Cashew Butter

I love peanut butter! Heck, one of my favourite things to eat is Reese's peanut butter cups. My mouth waters everytime I think of eating Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream! Anyway, peanut butter is something we take for granted. It's easy to buy from the shelf. One of my favourite brands since I was a kid is Peter Pan as well as Jif. Skippy was also popular! Nuts are naturally oily so if you crush them, a bit of oil will come out. With this in mind. I got some cashews and decided to make cashew butter.

The ingredients:

• Roasted Cashews (300 grams)
• Peanut Oil (a dollop)
• Salt
• Sugar or honey

You can use canola oil or vegetable oil but I used peanut oil to retain the nutty flavour.

The procedure:

You crush the nuts in a grinder and transfer it all to a blender. Throw in the dollop of oil, add in your salt and sugar and blend! It is better to add less oil and just add more as you need it as you don't want an oily mix. You want it gooey and to get this consistency, you need the least amount of oil in the mix. Once it is all mixed up, you have peanut butter! It is that simple!

Now here are some photos:

the ingredients.

the cashews in the grinder.

ready for grinding!

pulse your blender when you start grinding.

once it is ground, the nuts become sticky from their natural oils.

this sticky nut powder only needs a little oil to turn it into cashew butter.

put in a dollop.

you will need to scrape the sides of your blender as it will be hard to mix at first.

here it is blending.

voila! gooey cashew butter! if you like it chunky, save some nuts for grinding coarsely and add it into the blender just before you finish.

Now enjoy your cashew butter on toast, muffins or straight from the spoon which is what I do! Enjoy!

PS - you can use other nuts such as almonds, macadamias, etc.