I love peanut butter. LOVE. When I’m baking, I almost always choose recipes that use peanut butter, like monster cookies. I do not, however, love the fat content in regular peanut butter, or the sugar content in reduced fat peanut butter. I also do not love when I can’t understand the ingredients. So I decided to try my hand at making my own regular peanut butter and reduced fat peanut butter.
Peanut Butter
- 1 1/2 cups dry roasted peanuts
- 1 tbsp raw honey
- 1 tsp salt
Straight off, this has got to be better than store bought peanut butter, because there is no added oil. Anyhow, I started by putting these ingredients in my food processor. Actually, I started by trying to use the food processor attachment to my immersion blender. When that started to overheat, I moved it to my Ninja. When that started to overheat, I tossed what I was working on and went to bed. That was about 3AM this morning. When I woke up, I was obsessed with peanut butter, so I put everything in my Kitchen Aid Food Processor and nailed it.
The peanut butter goes through several states as it is processing. First, a thick, crumbly paste:
As it becomes smoother, it balls up:
Finally, it smoothes out and and becomes a thick tasty peanut butter.
I had the fiancé try it – he approved. I could eat it by the spoonful. This made about a cup of peanut butter.
Next, I wanted to figure out how to make a “better for me” peanut butter. Years ago, a friend of mine went on one of those health retreats. When she came back, she said that the peanut butter they served at breakfast had carrots in it and she couldn’t even tell. I started digging around online for a recipe. I could not find one, so I made up my own.
Carrot Peanut Butter
- 1 cup dry roasted peanuts
- 1/2 cup steamed carrots
- 1 tbsp raw honey
- 1 tsp salt
Again, put everything in the food processor and let her rip.
This recipe processed much more quickly. First, we had the crumbly pasty phase.
It skipped the ball phase and went straight to the perfect creamy peanut butter phase.
I had the fiancé try this one too. He asked if I spiced it differently, but would never have guessed that I added carrots. Had I told him prior to his tasting, he would have been prejudice against it, but since I did not he enjoyed it.
This made about 1 1/2 cups of peanut butter.
To me the primary difference is in color. The carrot version is a bit on the orange side, but that is really the only evidence of carrot.
For my Weight Watchers friends: Store Bought Creamy Peanut Butter is 3 points plus per tablespoon, my regular peanut butter above is 2 points plus per tablespoon and my carrot peanut butter is 1 point plus per tablespoon.
BOOM! Better for me peanut butter!
