I made dark roasted crunchy peanut butter with Achill Island sea salt tonight. Blend in the back to show that I didn't just buy peanut butter and call it homemade.

Edit: Thought maybe I'd make instructions a little clearer:

Preheat oven to 180C.

Lay 1kg of peanuts on as many baking trays to have them all in a single layer. Roast. Check and flip every 10 minutes for about 30-40 minutes or less to desired darkness. Make sure to pick out the ones that are roasting faster than the others or they will burn and it will ruin your peanut butter! Or you can pick them out before blending.

Remove from oven, let cool for at least 10 minutes.

Chuck roasted peanuts in food processor/blender (reserve about 200g for crunchy peanut butter) and watch the magic happen. It will go from full size peanuts to a crumble that sticks to the sides (use a spatula to scrape down), and then it's start to get smooth.

Add about 2 tsp (or to taste, do 1/2 tsp at a time until desired saltiness) of flaked sea salt, blend. Add the reserve peanuts and blend to desired crunchiness.

/edit

Edit: I guess it's technically not cooking, but I wasn't sure where else to share this... Recipe and all.

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[–] 29 points 2 months ago (21 children)

so.....that's it?? peanut-butter is just peanuts in the blender?? there is nothing more to it??

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  • [–] 24 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    In the Netherlands most of the PB you can buy is 100% peanut in the ingredient list and you just choose smooth or with chunks.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    In the Netherlands most of the PB ...........

    fun-fact: Butter is a protected name in the Netherlands and as a result of that, they can not have peanut-butter. Just pindakaas (peanut-cheese and no, i'm not making this up)

    Yeah, though many like Calve, I prefer the home-brands. But in Sweden it's less common and not nearly as good. So this could be perfect for making peanut sauce as well.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    On a decent jar of peanut butter the ingredients are just peanuts and salt. In the US you can get it with a lot more ingredients for cheaper if you want. I've never made it, but I eat a ton of the stuff.

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    Same here in Australia. My favourite brands are Mayer's Mayver's, Simply Nuts, and Pic's.

    It's just so much cheaper to make than to buy now. A 380g jar can be $6.30 AUD, when I can get a 1kg bag of peanuts for... $10 AUD? And it's 1kg of peanut butter.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Not sure why this is the first comment I am seeing mention salt. Unsalted peanut butter is rare, and definitely tastes worse. I am sure people sensitive to sodium or whatever appreciate it, though.

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Sure is. I love dark roasted peanut butter, so whatever peanuts you get (I got blanched and de-skinned. I think some people use raw), roast them to whatever darkness you want.

    It's pretty magical to see it go from whole peanuts to crumbly peanuts to smooth butter.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 months ago

    Edit: I guess it's technically not cooking

    Oven cooked peanuts

    It's cooking

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  • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Lay 1kg of peanuts on as many baking trays

    I tried to make sense of this without the second half of the sentence, and it had me very confused. "Who has a thousand baking trays?"

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Peanut butter is just blendered up peanuts? I would have thought there was more to it than that.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    That is how you make "natural" peanut butter. The oils will separate and need to be mixed with each use. A lot of store bought peanut butter also include emulsifiers to keep the oil from separating, and often sugar or other sweeteners.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    You can put it in the fridge to counteract this and in my experience it remains spreadable, unlike preblended natural pb I sometimes buy. This might have to do with how much oil is extracted from the nuts in each process, however, so YMMV.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    I have never had issues with pre-blended PB not spreading. You just mix the oil separation back in and it spreads fine. You don't need to refrigerate it; mixing it before use is not much labour.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I think OP made the kind that will settle and have to be stirred before use. Maybe the no stir kind takes a few extra steps?

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    Edit: I guess it's technically not cooking (...)

    I'll allow it.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago

    The instant change from loose peanut gravel to smooth peanut butter is one of my favorite moments in cooking. Something similar happens with peanut sauce, too.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Liar!

    Clearly you just smeared some store bought peanut butter on the blender for clout

    (Seriously tho, it looks delicious)

    Real question. How does one flip small stuff during baking? Your instructions say to flip the peanuts. Lots of baked things are supposed to be flipped halfway through. Flipping peanuts or sweet potato fries is random and haphazard at best. Do you have any techniques that are fast and thorough?

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  • [–] [S] 13 points 2 months ago

    Ya caught me. :'(

    I used two silicone spatulas to push them around. My oven has hot spots, so I had to keep checking and moving darker nuts away and paler nuts to the hot spots. Then I just used a spoon to scoop out the ones I didn't want to roast anymore.

    Too much work to flip them all one by one, so just rolled them around and hoped for the best.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Super cool!

    I grind my own, which I always thought was a big deal. But roasting it as well, wow, that's impressive!

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    What blender is this? Last time I tried my blender couldn't cope and I had extra chunky peanut butter (which was not the goal...).

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    Home made P Butter is so good I gained a buncha weight. I don't make it anymore....

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    As someone truly snobby about their peanut butter, this fills my heart with joy.

    If you ever want to really go wild, get a long wooden spoon and big Dutch oven, and roast them over a fire.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    check and flip every ten minutes

    Am I an idiot or are you flipping each individual peanut every ten min?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Nice! Thanks for sharing the recipe. Do you happen to know what's the purpose of the initial blanch? I.e. why not just roast them right away?

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  • [–] [S] 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    I think it is really just to remove the skin. You can use raw (skin on), but I imagine it would just mean having little bits of skin wedged between your teeth and gums...

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I used to make peanut butter with unblanched/unroasted peanuts (+salt+honey) and the skin pretty much gets blended. I hadn't even considered that until now!

    But blanched peanuts roast better. I think that's the real reason you do it, if you roast raw peanuts the skin turns to shrapnel

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    I like to do sunflowers or walnuts butter. Just made a thai peanut butter noodles with fresh pb, amazing!

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    Oh, I will have to give it a try with walnuts. My partner is mildly allergic to walnuts only if he eats them, so we have a lot of leftover walnuts from bags of nut/trail mix. Any tips, or treat it much like this peanut butter (roast, blend, salt, etc.) ?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    I learned how to make this from millhouse but did not try the recipe yet.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    Looks good, but I'm allergic to peanut butter jars. /s

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