After spending an entire morning this weekend drinking copious amounts of coffee and working on a new budget, I'm determined to carve our food spending down. That may seem unrelated to the title of this post, but I assure you, it's not.
On my last trip to the store I picked up a 16 ounce jar of organic sunbutter and looked at the price tag.
$7.49
I sat it back on the shelf. Thinking to myself that surely, somewhere, there was a recipe for sunflower butter. And I could make it, right? I mean, at least something similar.
The first batch was a bust. I added a bit of water thinking it would thin the sunflower meal. It turned it into a sticky, goopy mess. I'm just telling you, in case maybe you thought it would be a good idea. It's not. I was able to thin it with almond milk to add to baked goods, so it wasn't a total loss.
Then I remembered this. Ah-ha!
Round two was much more successful…..





It's decadent artisan quality amazing goodness. Really. Even the littlest in my bunch gave it a thumbs up. This is a lot coming from a kid who previously only preferred no stir creamy peanut butter. Aside from the delicious factor (and really, it's amazing!) it cost under $4 to make a 16 ounce jar. That's about half the cost of the grocery store variety and no plastic tub to recycle. Woo-hoo! So, did you want the recipe?
I thought so.
cinnamon maple sunflower seed butter
{slightly adapted from Heidi's recipe, which is slightly adapted from the new cookbook, Food in Jars}
1 pound (about 2.5 cups) raw sunflower seeds
1/2 tsp salt
4-5 TBSP coconut oil (or sunflower oil)
3 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
2 TBSP maple sugar (or syrup)
*Lightly toast the seeds until they have a soft golden brown hue (first photo). Let them cool ten minutes. Add the sunflower seeds & salt to a food processor fitted with an "s" blade. Pulse a little. Next add 2 TBSP of oil and blend away. Blending will take awhile. Don't give up. Stop and scrape down the sides often. KC has an excellent photo tutorial on the process here. Add the cinnamon, vanilla & maple sugar. Blend a good long while to get it all mixed well. If the mixture seems crumbly and dry, you can add more coconut oil one TBSP at a time. Drizzling it in as the food processor runs. It took just over ten minutes to get mine nice and smooth.
*feel free to omit the salt, vanilla & sweetener for a simple seedbutter.
I stored ours in the fridge, which made it sort of hard. But we only use it to put on toast & apples, so this is fine for us. Does anyone store homemade nut/seed butters in the pantry? Will it go rancid? I'd love to know.
One thing is for sure. Apple slices will never be the same…

Enjoy!