Recipe for homemade peanut butter

Ingredients:

2 cups raw peanuts (Add an extra 1/2 cup if making chunky peanut butter – see note 1)

2-2.5 tablespoons peanut oil or any vegetable oil

3-4 tablespoons raw sugar, brown sugar or honey

1/2 teaspoon salt (You may use any amount or omit this altogether according to your personal preference)

Steps:

1. Rinse peanuts under running water. Pat dry with kitchen towel and leave to air dry.

2. Preheat oven at 170°C.

3. Spread the raw peanuts in a single layer on a shallow baking tray and roast them for 25-30 minutes. The roasting time varies depending on the size of the peanuts. Shaking the pan and stirring the peanuts every 10 minutes helps to ensure that they are roasted evenly. When the skin turns dark brown, the peanuts appear to be slightly golden brown and smell fragrant, you can remove them from the oven. Give it a test taste to check. Do not overcook the peanuts as they will continue to cook and turn crunchy after cooling down.

4. After the peanuts have cooled completely, remove the skins.

5. Place 2 cups of peanuts into a blender or food processor and grind. During the blending process, the peanut texture will turn from being coarse to fine, and finally it becomes sticky. You will need to stop once in a while to scrap down the side.

6. Stir in sugar, salt and oil. (Note: If you are using raw sugar, add them together with the peanuts at step 5 to ensure that they are fully dissolved.) Continue to process until it becomes smooth and creamy or the consistency you desire. Taste the peanut butter and adjust the amount of seasoning to your liking.

7. Pour it into a jar and store in the fridge. It will be good for 2 weeks.

Notes:

1. For this recipe, the used red-skinned peanuts which can be bought from Hock Hua Tonic were used. You may use any kind of peanuts that you like. Be sure that they are good for roasting  and not the type for making soup. If you’re not sure, check with the shop assistant. If you’re short of time, you can buy unsalted roasted peanuts from the local stores/supermarkets.

2. Instead of roasting, you can dry fry your peanuts using the following method: “Rinse peanuts until running water. Pat dry with kitchen towel and leave to air dry. In a wok/ cooking pan, dry fry (without oil) peanuts with low heat until fragrant, the skin turns dark brown and the internal colour is tan. It will take about 20-25 minutes or so. Set aside and let them cool down.”

3. The oil helps to accelerate the blending process. It will also make the peanut butter thinner and smoother. As peanuts also produce oil themselves during the grinding process, so wait until the later stage of blending to add in the oil.

4. For chunky peanut butter: Stir in an extra ½ cup of roasted and skinless peanuts after step 6 and process a few more seconds to create the chunks in your peanut butter.

5. You can use the same method to make other nut butter such as almond butter.

6. If you see a layer of oil appearing on the top of the peanut butter, never drain it off as they are full of good fats. Just stir it completely into the peanut butter.

7. As this peanut butter doesn’t contain any preservatives, it should be stored in the refrigerator. The chilled peanut butter will harden slightly, but will turn soft easily if spread on toasted bread or left in room temperature.

Recipe, pictures and notes are courtesy of Low Lai Kuan (https://food-4tots.com/)