Hazelnut Butter Two Ways

I know I’ve mentioned we have hazelnut trees in our yard.  In fact we have a whole bunch of them.  I’m still shelling nuts from last year we got that many.  Which is awesome, I’m not complaining at all.  We even had help to pick them all because there were so many.  It would have taken us days if we didn’t have help from my siblings-in-law 😀  It’s a lot of work, but so worth it.  So when you consider the price of nuts at the store, consider how much work goes into them because I know hazelnuts can be fairly pricy.  Let me tell you, they are so worth it.

Making nut butter really isn’t hard, it just takes some time.  First you need to roast whatever kind of nuts you’re using.  I roasted these at 350 degrees for about 13 minutes stirring a couple times in between, but anywhere from 10-15 minutes should be good.  You should be able to smell them as they smell amazing when they’re done.  To remove some of the skins, wrap them in a towel while they’re still hot from the oven and let them sit for a couple minutes and then take small batches and rub them in between a towel.  This wont get off all the skins, but a lot.

Then grinding them into butter just takes time.  You don’t need to let them cool before just throwing them in your food processor and turning it on.  It will grind them into a flour like consistency and then it will slowly start to stick together.  Keep going!  It will eventually turn into smooth, runny nut butter.  This can take over 10 minutes so don’t lose patience, it will happen eventually.  And remember to scrape down the sides of your food processor occasionally.  Once the nut butter is made, add in whatever you like(or just leave it plain).  You can store it outside of the fridge if you plan on using it fairly quickly, but I like to store it in the fridge.  It also firms up quite a bit once it cools down, especially the chocolate one.