Nut butter- to soak or not to soak

Mishimoo

Would love to know some great tips and recipes for nut butters, so far I have become good at almond butter...not too successful with sunflower butter. I have seen recipes with soaked nuts and unsoaked nuts, so I want to know:

1. Why some of you soak and take that long extra step of soaking and drying? I personally do not take these steps.

Also, I have heard that the peel of the almonds is bad for you, but I see that the store bought almond butter has the peel in it....So:

2. if It's so bad why do they sell it whole with the peel?

I usually do my but butter in my fabulous Cuisinart processor, but recently got my other MacDaddy Omega 8006 (I call it that). I prefer my Cuisinart personally for butters:

3. I would like good tips or recipes for a creamy nut butter.

I am very new at being raw so I have a lot to learn.

Sorry about all the questions.

Thanks in advance.

joannabanana

I am definitely no expert in nut butters. I'll tell you what I did so you don't do it.

I soaked cashews and made cashew butter. It was disgusting. It smelled weird, too.

I didn't soak my macadamia nuts and made macadamia nut butter. It was basically buttery ground nuts, so I added sunflower oil to smooth it out and that made it a ground-nut-oil mess.

nancyk70

emtpdmom- How long do you sprout the sunflower seeds? how long is the actual sprout? I would love to try this for a replacement for the kids peanut butter.

Mishimoo- You don't have to peel the almonds to make almond butter I soak then dehydrate the nuts then grind into butter if you soak the nuts and rinse well you release the enzyme inhibitors so no need to peel, unless you perfer it that way. I tried soaking and not drying and it went bad quickly.

I like to use my food processor as well to make nut butters, sometimes I have to add a little oil for a creamier texture I have also used my vita mix blender to make it. In small batches it works really well.

emtpdmom

nancyk70 -- I usually soak sunflower seed for 24 hours, rinsing at least 3 times, sometimes 4. Then I sprout until the tails are no more than half the length of the seed . . . usually takes a day . . . they dehydrate. They're delicious. I've tried seasoning a bit before dehydrating, but I prefer them plain. Do let me know how they work for butter. I've not tried it, but plan to later this summer.

By the way, the soak water is excellent for watering plants. My asparagus fern is absolutely beautiful this year, and the ONLY additive it has seen is seed and nut soak water.

emtpdmom

Why soak / sprout nuts

From Germin8 on another forum:

nancyk70

Thanks emtpdmom I will, going to go soak sunflower seeds now!

If the butter works out I will post the recipe

emtpdmom

Nancy, I'm just thinking out loud here. If you don't like the sunflower seed butter by itself, maybe a combination of sunflower and peanut would work. Straight sunflower might be a bit bland.

Mishimoo

Thank you nancyk70 that was great info, I will soak them and dehydrate them then...I just don't like to wait a day or two to make my butter, but I'll try and see how it comes out. So far I have not soaked my buts for my butters, I hope it comes out the same texture.

Thanks you all!!!! great information.

Keep sharing :)

waterbaby12347

I believe the texture will be different if you soak your" buts"... smile

Thanks so much for this typo, we all make them but yours is wonderful... LOL

YOU have made my day, thanks I needed a good laugh!!!

BTW if you want to change the typo, just edit and then I will delete my response... But I love it, thanks for the laughter!!!

and good luck with your new recipe!!!d

sid23

I posted a recipe for a nut butter a while back. I soak walnuts 6 hrs to overnight, rinse and drain. Put them in the cuisinart, add shoyu, curry powder, turmeric, cayenne (a little), a garlic clove and a little ginger. pulse a few times then let it spin a while. The nut butter will for a ball and start rolling around after a while. You can a dd a little water to help it along. I use this as a base-"rice" for sushi and put a pre-made mix of julienned zucchini, carrots, and chopped up kale that has cider vinegar, curry and turmeric, ginger, shoyu. Or i make nori dehydrator crackers.

Mishimoo

Waterababy...I am laughing sooo hard right now, I didn't notice my typo!!! You see, my first language is Spanish and combining that with making typo mistakes you get "butts" and other silly words together LOLOLOL!!!

I think I will leave the post as is so others can get a laugh too!!

Thanks!

Mishimoo

sid23...WOW! I never thought of using nuts as rice for my sushi, this is an awesome idea and recipe. Thanks so much! I will sure experiment with this recipe. How do you spead the mixture on the nori without making the nori wrinkly and wet? Sorry for hijacking my own thread :).

sid23

Just don't add too much water. When you process it be patient. Since the nuts are wet from soaking, I only end up adding MAYBE a tablespoon of water. I've never had a problem spreading it

Mishimoo

Thank you!

Mishimoo

I think I will soak my nuts (smile) and then dehydrate them just to make sure the result is what I want. I have not had any digestive problems from doing it without the soaking process, but I'm curious on how it comes out with the soaking and dehydrating step.

I'm experimenting with so much stuff now that I'm transitioning to 100% Raw (now 80%)...I'm having so much fun!