Peanut butter: one ingredient and twelve minutes of blending
Many shop-bought peanut butters contain sugar, palm oil and emulsifiers. Homemade contains peanuts. That is all: not a drop of added fat is needed, because peanuts are roughly half fat by weight and butter themselves. You only have to survive the stage where it looks hopelessly ruined — it clumps into a dry ball and seems to be going nowhere. A few minutes later it is smooth and pourable.
Your own work in that: 33 min.
- Roasting 17 min
- Blending 11 min
- Jarring 5 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneRoast the peanuts
Spread the peanuts on a tray in one layer and roast 12 minutes at 175 °C, stirring once. They should be golden and clearly fragrant. Roasting does more than build flavour — warm nuts release their oil faster and blend several minutes quicker.
Ingredients: 500 g peanuts
TipBought roasted peanuts work too, but give them 5 minutes in the oven to warm through. Cold nuts take considerably longer to blend.
Twelve minutes, until fragrantRub off the skins
Tip the hot peanuts onto a tea towel, fold it over and rub vigorously. The papery skins come away by themselves. You needn't remove every one, but those that stay add a faint bitterness and dark flecks to the finished butter.
A tea towel and vigorous rubbingBlend: the crumb stage
Tip the warm peanuts into a food processor with an S blade (not a jug blender) and run it. After 60 seconds you have dry crumbs, like coarse meal. Scrape the sides with a spatula and keep going.
Ingredients: 500 g peanuts
After a minute: dry crumbsSurvive the ball stage
About 3–4 minutes after you started, the mixture clumps into one solid ball that rolls around the blade. It looks like a disaster and plenty of people give up here. Do not add oil. Keep blending, scraping the sides every minute.
TipThis is not a fault: the finely ground nuts soak up the first oil released and stick together. Only once the blade has broken open more cells is there enough oil for the mass to loosen. It needs a few more minutes.
The ball is a normal stage, not a failureTake it to smooth
After another 4–6 minutes the ball suddenly breaks down and the mixture turns glossy and pourable. Now add the salt and, if using, the honey, and blend another 60 seconds. It should look like thick cream; it firms up noticeably once cool.
Ingredients: ½ tsp salt · 1 tbsp honey · 1 tbsp oil
Glossy and pourable, like thick creamJar it
Spoon into a scalded, dry jar and cool. Keep in the fridge for up to two months, or a month in the cupboard. The oil separates to the top over time — normal in a butter with no emulsifiers; just stir it back with a knife.
Into the jar, then the fridge
Before you start
Crunchy version
Set aside 50 g of roasted peanuts before blending, chop them coarsely and stir them in at the very end. Homemade crunchy, with the pieces exactly the size you like.
From other nuts
Almonds, hazelnuts and cashews work the same way; harder almonds usually need a few minutes longer. Hazelnuts with two tablespoons of cocoa and two or three tablespoons of honey give a homemade chocolate hazelnut spread.
Which machine
A food processor with an S blade. A jug blender copes only if powerful, and needs constant scraping — the mixture is too thick to circulate around the blades.
Should you add oil
Not if the machine can manage. Added oil thins the butter and makes it separate faster, without improving the taste. The exception is a weak machine that would otherwise overheat — then add a tablespoon of oil at the ball stage.