There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to admit that they were wrong. For some, this time comes early on in life. For others, it comes much later.
Sometimes people will make up all kinds of excuses to cover their errors.
I know what you are thinking right now. Katie, the wise one, is never wrong! ….Is she?
Friends, yes. I have been wrong. In fact, it has happened with allarming frequency in my life, starting at…well birth, probably. For the most part, I can admit it. Most of the time, I readily admit it.
[Except when I am arguing with an insufferable person who NEVER admits that they are wrong, in which case I will argue my point (right or wrong, doesn't matter) to the death.]
A while ago, I wrote a post about homemade nut butters. I was a wee bit zealous in my new-found love of them and spoke of how easy they are to make. How much better they taste than store bought. How you really need to make your rightthisveryinstant.
Was I wrong?
Errr….kind of.
I’ve been on a roll with both peanut butter and sunflower seed butter. I make a huge batch about once a month and try to ration the four or five jars to last the whole month. (I wish I were kidding.) (No I don’t.)
Last month, I decided to go hippie and instead of buying the super cheap roasted and salted sunflower seeds at the normal grocery store, I went with the organic (still roasted and salted) ones from the Coop.
I was wrong when I said that the source of your seeds doesn’t matter.
This batch of CARAMEL LATTE SUNFLOWER SEED BUTTER sucked. (And it should have been SO SO good!) It sucked not just in taste and texture, but the process nearly sucked my will to ever attempt homemade nut butter again.
Clearly, the texture of these was…lacking. I attempted to salvage the crumbly mess by adding a little bit of oil while processing, but it just started to suck more. I processed the bejesus out of it too. That poor machine was running for about 25 minutes and this was the end product.
But I wasn’t giving up.
I scraped the “sunflower seed butter” (if you can call it that) out of the processor, and re-loaded it up roasted peanuts. I hit on. I prepared for the worst.
Five minutes, I repeat, A MERE FIVE MINUTES later, I had creamy, warm, perfect peanut butter. I felt vindicated.
So what was the problem with my sunflower seed butter? I don’t really know. I got these from the bulk section, and they could have been old. They definitely tasted off and a bit stale, so that wouldn’t surprise me.
Maybe they dry out in the bulk bins, making them harder to process? Maybe the kind I usually buy in a sealed bag are roasted with more oil? Maybe I had some bad karma coming my way when I made the last batch?
I guess I will never know.
Same machine. Same morning. Vastly different results.
So yes, I was wrong about the sunflower seeds. The source matters. The roasting matters. You can screw it up. It isn’t always better than storebought.
BUT wait!! I wasn’t completely wrong! I HAVE made sunflower seed butter! Many times, in fact, and it has never turned out like this. I promise.
So? Moral of the story: if you find a brand that works DO NOT STRAY. Brand loyalty is a thing for a reason.
Except…..I bought two bags of the roasted and salted sunflower seeds from Trader Joe’s last weekend. But, Joe’s peanuts didn’t disappoint, so let’s extrapolate.
I’ll keep you posted.
Are you loyal to certain brands and companies? Have you tried to make nut butters and failed? Have you had bad experiences with the bulk bins? Please tell me I’m not alone in this. Or that I’m not crazy.
There is something about bulk bin products that tend to not be great for me…the staleness factor for one. And although they should be cheaper, the bulk bins at either the reg groc store or WFs are way more than just buying said items from Tjs, i.e. dried fruit, seeds, nuts, trail mix and that type of thing. I ONLY use TJs nuts for all my nut butter…they’re cheap and they work.
And good you salvaged things….but I would have been so ticked if I was you. Time, money, energy…(almost) wasted. At least you got your nut butter in the end!
I hope it goes better this time around! I have been in that situation too. Usually when I decided to not roast the sunflower seeds…and then there was the time I roasted some walnuts too long and it was burnt butter. It just didn’t end well there- no way to salvage it. I’ve heard that the bulk bins can be pretty contaminated with stuff- especially if they refill on top of the old..
I totally hear you on finding a brand that works for you, and sticking with it!! And I’ve also had that same experience with making a nut butter. It usually works just fine, but then once in a while, it sucks. It never gets creamy–and it’s sooooo annoying.
We buy our every day coffee beans from a bulk bin, and luckily it’s only happened twice when the beans seems to have gone a bit rancid, but those two times caused bad coffee for a week each!! That’s unacceptable. On the other hand, I keep going back. Because I like said, it’s only happened twice (in 2 years), and buying Intelligentsia coffee (my husband’s favorite) is out of the budget.
maybe they had gone rancid? sometimes i get stuff out of the bulk bin that has gluten in it and i hurt for days
so i have pretty much stopped doing that and just buy sealed packages. it sucks bc the bulk bin is always cheaper by weight!
I had a sunflower seed disaster, too. Just didn’t work for nut butter. And I concur that TJ peanuts are prefect for nut butter.
I just made sunflower seed butter today! It looks like baby poo, but it’s good tasting!
I’ve had to add a ton of oil to mine — I wasn’t giving up… and it eventually got super loose but….in a very oil way. And the taste was…oily. Ew.
I did get a bagged version of sflower seeds and so we will see.
Thing is…now I am nervous to make nut butter out of any bin nuts (Cashew, almond..etc).
What would happen if you mixed the successful peanut butter with the unsuccessful sesame seed butter? I suppose you might just ruin some perfectly good peanut butter … What kind of food processor do you have? I have made nut butter in my blender before, but it is kind of a pain because the tall/skinny shape seems to require more scraping than a short/squat food processor would .. I’m thinking about acquiring yet another appliance to fill up my cabinets.
I hear ya, there is totally a difference! I’m thinking the oil from the roasting was pretty huge. I’ve had trouble with some raw nuts/seeds, too.