Fresh ground almond butter

My dad gave me a Blendtec Total Blender for Christmas last year. Until yesterday, the only thing I'd made with it is ice cream, despite the fact that the blender came with a book of recipes. So, yesterday I picked up a large bag of almonds at Costco and took a turn at making my own almond butter.

The recipe in the book is for peanut butter and lists 3 teaspoons of peanut or vegetable oil as optional. I used 3 cups of raw, unsalted almonds and several tablespoons of water mixed in throughout the 18 blender cycles it took to get the butter to a spreadable consistency. I removed half of the crushed almonds after the first few cycles, which seemed to increase the blender's ability to efficiently turn the nuts into butter. I didn't add any salt, sugar or oil.

The picture to the right is of both my almond butter and some freshly ground almond butter from Whole Foods. I took the photo to illustrate the difference in consistency. My almond butter is at the top of the photo with the Whole Foods almond butter underneath it. Although the Whole Foods almond butter lists unsalted almonds as the only ingredient, I find it hard to believe it doesn't contain any oil, even though I ground their butter myself in the store and the container that feeds into the grinder contains only chopped almonds.

Nevertheless, I'm pleased with how my almond butter turned out. It's easy to spread and surprisingly tasty even though it's salt-free. The recipe lists a yield of 2 cups almond butter, but I ended up with about 2 1/2 cups.

The average jar of almond butter in the grocery store costs more than $6 for a 16 oz jar. I paid $9.89 for 3 lbs of almonds and I still have more than 2/3 of the bag left after making 2 1/2 cups of almond butter. Nice savings dontcha think?