Homemade Almond Butter

So here's what happened to me today:  I was planning on going out to the store to pick up a few things for lunches/dinners this week.  One of those things was almond butter- I wanted some to pack with apple slices for lunch tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I live in Wyoming.  This means that all of the sudden the weather decided that we would have a bit of a blizzard today that would prevent most of us from leaving our homes (or work, sadly, if you are my husband).  So, after looking outside and considering my options (I do not do well out in the snow), I decided to put off the trip to tomorrow and see if I could make the critical grocery item (almond butter) myself at home.  I found some instructions online that made it sound pretty easy, and luckily I already had some almonds in the house.

So here's what I learned: It actually is really easy to make your own almond butter!  All you need is:

• a food processor
• almonds (usually whole but I only had sliced so I used those)

That's it!  Oh, and about 20-30 minutes of your life.  Here is what you do:

Add your almonds to your food processor.  Turn it on high and watch them turn into tiny little almond bits. 

You will want to stop every few minutes to scrape down the sides to make sure it all gets processed evenly (I probably did this about 10 times), but other than that, the processor does it all. Keep going for what seems like a really long time, and after about 15-20 minutes it will start to look creamier and butterier like this: 

But you aren't done yet!  Keep going for 5 or so more minutes until it eventually turns into smooth almond butter. This is what it should look like when it is just about done:

Finally, you will have some delicious almond butter to dip your apple slices into! Crisis averted!

Okay, now some notes from my experience:  I only had a mini food processor, rather than the big one, so it was a bit annoying for me in that 1)  I had to hold down the button the whole time and 2) It was so loud that I am pretty sure my dog thought I was murdering someone.  If you have a full size processor, this will be super easy and way better, I would guess.  Also, if it seems like it has been processing forever and you are wondering when it will ever become butter, you are on the right track.  It will feel like it's never going to happen, but then it will, I promise!  Finally, the amount of almonds you do at once depends on the size of your processor.  I only had about a cup in my house to use anyway, but if you have a mini processor you could probably do 2 cups.  If you have a big one, probably 3 or 4. 

I am excited to know that I can do this now- it will save some money (almond butter ain't cheap!) and I will know that it is truly fresh!  Once I finally make it out to the store I plan on picking up more almonds so that I can make another batch this week.  Can't wait to try it again and I am glad I learned this trick.  At least there was one good thing that came out of this snow storm for me...