Homemade Almond Butter

What I made and why

I made homemade almond butter today! There is a recipe in Superjuicing to requires almond butter. I went to the store to buy some, but all the almond butter had added oil and sugar. I didn't want added oil and sugar. It was also really expensive. We have an Omega NC800 HDR 5th Generation Nutrition Center and a 3 pound back of almonds, so I decided to just make some almond butter at home! Prior to beginning this little adventure, I Googled how to make almond butter with an Omega Nutrition Center. I watched a couple of videos and found out why all of the store bought almond butter had added oil. Apparently, you can't make almond butter without extra oil. 

The process

If you've got an Omega Nutrition Center, you set it up just like you would for juicing, but instead of using the piece with the metal strainer on the end, you use the one that's solid all the way to the end and you don't need the extra tip with the numbers on it. I put about five almonds in at a time. I was pretty surprised with how fast they went through the auger. I was also surprised about how much came out! I had my 2 cup Mason jar filled up in now time. It comes out pretty dry the first time. I put it through the machine 8 times, but I missed taking a picture of one of them. You can tell which one I missed because it there is a missing white bowl picture.

After eight times through the machine, I had it in the bowl. i used a fork to mash it all up into a little ball. It was wet, but it wasn't like butter. I was hoping I could get away without the added oil, but that wasn't an option. Both videos that I wanted used coconut oil. Oddly enough, we went to Natural Grocers today to use up my $25 Living Social deal. We had planned on getting some apples and cucumbers, but the price was a bit more than we were anticipating, so instead we got some breakfast sausage and coconut milk. I then told hubby that we needed to spend another $15. He suggested almond butter, but I didn't want to spend that much money. He randomly walked by the coconut oil and grabbed a jar. I looked at the $13 price tag and nearly died thinking that we'd never actually use coconut oil so why spend that much money on it. This all happened before I watched the YouTube videos. Crazy how he got me the missing ingredient that I needed!

I added two slightly heaped teaspoons full. These were teaspoons from the silverware drawer and not actually measuring teaspoons. I mixed it all in with a form, and this is what I got. 

Once it was at the consistency that I was satisfied with, I put it into the mason jar. Do you remember how I said I had enough for a full jar? After I put the oil into the bowl, just sort of shrank! I'm not sure if I have enough to make the recipe in the Superjuicing book, but if not, I can just make more.

The Verdict

This was super easy to make. It was pretty fast too. However, it definitely lacked something compared to the almond butter that I have had from Costco. We actually ran out of salt, so I wasn't able to add any to see how it would taste with salt. However, I don't think the recipe that I need this for will be impacted by bland almond butter. I'm pretty sure it's more important to have the right texture. I can't wait to try it out. I hope my dates are still good! Stay tuned next week to see how it turns out!