Cashew Nut Butter

I have a fairly unhealthy addiction to peanut butter. As long as it is of the crunchy variety (I really don’t understand why you would choose smooth when you could get added chunks of peanut goodness) I can eat the stuff out of the jar with a spoon and I can be regularly found dunking celery sticks into the peanut butter jar in an attempt to convince myself I am indulging in a healthy snack! There is a whole world of alternative nut butters out there thought and I made a decision to not restrain myself to the peanut variety alone. When browsing the ‘alternative’ shelves at my local supermarket I came across a giant bag of cashew nuts at a majorly reduced price. So rather than just buying a bar of a non-peanut butter I thought I would make my own…how hard can it be? Well not hard at all, as it turns out, it really couldn’t be much simpler.

INGREDIENTS

350g cashew nuts

Water

Place the cashew nuts on a bowl and cover with water, set aside for a couple of hours to allow the nuts to soften. (I decided to soften my nuts first as my food processor is starting to look a little worse for wear and I was worried I would start seeing smoke if I confronted it with unsoaked nuts!)

Drain the nuts and pat dry with kitchen towel. Place into a food processor and blend (you may need to do this in batches). And keep blending….at first the nuts crumble into small pieces but keep going and eventually the natural oils in the nuts start to be released and a thick paste is formed. Keep going a little bit further and voila….cashew nut butter.

Store in a clean, sterilised jar and use as you would with any other nut butter (spread on toast, in milkshakes, on celery, eaten straight from the spoon…….)