My cute sister Brittany just left after visiting for Christmas. It was heavenly to have her here! On her last afternoon in town, we sneaked in a game of Scrabble over Nutella and homemade strawberry jam sandwiches. I haven't had Nutella in forever, and it was sooooo good. So when I stumbled on a recipe for homemade chocolate almond butter, I had to try it! And WOW! It is fabulous! Silky, chocolaty bliss. The original recipe called for dark chocolate, but since I'm a milk chocolate kind of girl... I changed it to suite. :) The key to this almond butter is patience. It's super easy, but it still took about 20 minutes for me to make it. Lots of scraping down the food processor. But SO SO SO worth it! I've been eating this almond butter on bread with and without jam, on apples, with bananas, and I'm already looking forward to having it on waffles and oatmeal for breakfast this week.
Homemade Chocolate Almond Butter
Submitted by Mindy ~ The Sisters Cafe
2 cups raw almonds
1/2 cup chocolate (I used guittard milk chocolate chips)
1 tsp coconut oil
1/8th-1/4 tsp kosher salt, to taste (optional)
Place 2 cups of raw, whole almonds into a food processor. Process for about 15 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl every minute or as necessary. It is a long process, but you don’t want to stop until you have released all the oils in the almonds and the mixture is very smooth and buttery! This took me a good 20 minutes (although the original recipe says 15).
Just before your almond butter is ready, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil. I do this in the microwave. Microwave chocolate and oil in bowl for 2 minutes on 50% power. Stir mixture until the bowl is no longer warm. Then microwave at 30 second intervals on 50% power, stirring after each interval, until fully melted.*
Add the melted chocolate to the almond butter (still in the processor) and process for a couple minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add your kosher salt to taste and process more. Scoop into a container and store in the fridge. Makes 1 & 1/4 cups, 20 one-tbsp servings, or enough to fill a 250 ml jar.
*To melt chocolate on the stove top: Add the 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 tsp of coconut oil to a small pot. Melt on low. You want to remove the pot from heat when there are still some chocolate chip clumps remaining. Don’t worry they will melt as you stir the mixture. Take it off the heat a bit early to avoid burning the chocolate.
Adapted from: Oh She Glows (Angela has lots of pictures of the process on her site if you need them)
oh so glad to see this! i love almond butter. i buy the justins maple almond butter and it is expensive. i tried making almond butter a few weeks ago and it just made almond meal. i guess i added the maple to early because it was really sticky! yummy though. now i know i need to process it alot longer! thanks!!
ReplyDeleteLooks uh-mazing! haven't tried making my own nut butter yet...
ReplyDeleteI love nutella!! I will definitely try this!
ReplyDeleteooooh! i saw this recipe on her site. i'm so glad you tried it so i didn't have to be the test dummy. now, my turn. i'll give it shot.
ReplyDeletep.s. much better for you than nutella!
I wish I had a jar of your butter right now. It sounds really good.
ReplyDeletelooks fabulous Mindy! that afternoon sure was fun...I miss you! Can't wait to make my own version of Nutella! :)
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful chocolate spread. I must try it and eat it all up.
ReplyDeleteI made this. It is delicious, but after putting it in the fridge it is like chipping ice to get it out. Nutella isn't refrigerated; is there a reason this one needs to be?
ReplyDeleteHi Liz, you're right about it getting hard when it is refrigerated. Such a bummer. My understanding is that the homemade butters don't have any preservatives in them, so the oils in butter can become rancid. I have no idea how long this would take... but I do know that if you let the almond butter come to room temperature, it turns soft again. To be honest, most of the time when I make this it is gone in two days. So I don't really worry about refrigerating it unless it lasts longer than usual. :)
ReplyDelete