Into the thick of things - Hazelnut Butter

I wanted to keep up with making my own nut butters, mainly to keep the jars full, but also to try other nuts to see how they turn out. Probably my absolute favourite nut butter has always been hazelnut, I love the taste of them and use these nuts anytime I can.

To make any of these nut butters is fairly straight forward and hazelnut butter is even easier than the others it turns out! This nut butter is so easy everyone should be making it - it is also nearly the most expensive in the health food shops, so there is another good reason to try making this at home.

The hazelnuts must first be roasted to remove the skins - to do this put them in the oven at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes or so. Then once out, transfer the hot hazelnuts to a rough tea towel (we did this before for making halva) using the tea towel rub them between your hands to get the skins to loosen off.

This method will remove most of the skins. The rest can be pulled off with your fingers if you are very picky about having some skins on. 

Hazel nuts in blender 

Then pour 1 cup of the roasted nuts into a glass blender ( I don't use plastic around food). Have a wooden spoon or scraper handy and turn on the machine, this only takes a couple of minutes and you will have nut butter very quickly.

Hazelnuts just before they turn to butter

These nuts are soft, very oily, then turn to dusty mush and then butter in about 2 or 3 minutes. Any other blending is just to make sure you have all the nut dust mixed in as well. 

Hazelnut butter in blender 

The hardest part was getting all the butter out of the bottom of the blender! Luckily it was runny enough to mostly pour out into the jars. I made two batches of nut butter, but could easily have made it with one.

This nut butter smells delicious and I can't wait to try it, after my cleanse. 

Have a healthy day,

April

Hazelnut butter in jar - Looks and smells great!