[NUT BUTTER]
NUT BUTTER
Nut butter can be easily made in the home, but nearly all the prepared nut foods on sale require expensive machinery and a steam plant to produce, hence can not be made in the home.
Peanuts and almonds are the nuts most suitable for making nut butter. The other varieties are difficult to blanch and do not make good butter. The best variety of peanuts for making nut butter is the Spanish shelled. They are the most easily blanched. Removing the skins from the nuts after they are shelled is called blanching. Peanuts can not be blanched unless they have been thoroughly heated.
To properly cook peanuts is the essential thing to produce a healthful, palatable nut butter. This can be accomplished if care is exercised. There are three ways of cooking them: namely, baking or roasting, boiling, and steaming. The baking process is the easiest way, but care should be used not to scorch them. Scorched or burnt peanuts are unfit to use in any form.