Honey Roasted Cinnamon Peanut Butter

My nut butters are usually very simple, one ingredient kinda things.  Generally I use just nuts, either dry roasted or raw, no added salt or sugar or oil of any kind.  It's absolutely amazing this way.  You get the taste of the actual nut without all of the added sodium and fat and calories that really do nothing to enhance the flavor anyway.

Every now and then, though, I like a treat just as much as the next person.  While surfing the web one dreary morning, I came across an ad for Naturally Nutty Honey Roasted Cinnamon Peanut Butter.  It set off an almost immediate craving.  I've never seen Naturally Nutty brand around here in the stores, and ordering it from their website wouldn't have fulfilled my sudden need for instant gratification.  Then there was the whole issue of the fact that I'm ummmm frugal, and I wasn't about to pay five bucks (plus shipping!) for a mere eight ounces of peanut butter.  Hmmmm, a little light bulb went off in my head.  "I'll bet I can make this." I checked my cabinets and was thrilled to discover that I had all the ingredients needed to make this new yummy concoction that I now absolutely had to have!  It was easy as pie, too.  Though I don't know who made up that expression, because I think pie is all kinds of hard.  I've never made a pie crust in my life that was worth eating.  But as usual, I digress, so back to the goodness that is this peanut butter.

Honey Roasted Cinnamon Peanut Butter

Ingredients:

• 1 pound dry roasted unsalted peanuts
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup raw cane sugar
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 2.5 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Place peanuts in a large mixing bowl.

3.  Melt honey on the stove top or in the microwave until liquid.

4.  Pour liquid honey over peanuts and mix very well.

5.  Sprinkle nuts with sugar, salt, and cinnamon and stir well.

6.  Place on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a silpat.

7.  Bake for 25 minutes, stirring FREQUENTLY.  After the first ten minutes, I stirred mine about once every five minutes.  Nuts will be golden and bubbly when done.

8.  Stir nuts on baking sheet until they no longer stick together.  I got tired of this step, so I quit.  If I hadn't been going to grind them up, I would have continued stirring so they'd look all pretty in the candy dish, but I figured it didn't much matter since I was going to butter-fy them anyway.

9.  After the nuts have cooled, break them up into manageable sized clumps (unless you did actually stand there and stir them until they didn't stick together anymore), and put them in the food processor.

Yes, those are indeed breast pump parts in the background!

10.  Turn food processor on high until nuts break down into a flour like consistency.

11.  Turn food processor off and scrape down the sides.  Depending on the motor strength of your processor, you might want to rest it for a bit.  You don't ever need to add any oil to your nut butters.  You just need to process and rest process and rest over and over again until you've got nut butter.  Nuts have tons of natural oils that will release if you're just patient enough.  

12.  Process until really pretty thin.  I process mine until it's much thinner than anything I'd put on a sandwich, because once it's been in the refrigerator for awhile it firms up and becomes the perfect spreadable consistency.  

13.  Pour in glass or plastic containers with seal tight lids and store in the refrigerator.

That's it!  Fast, relatively easy, better for you than the processed oil filled stuff from the stores, and a TON cheaper than commercial brand specialty peanut butters.  This didn't last very long in my house, because for the first time ever, the kiddo liked one of my home made nut butters.

Enjoy!