Almond detritus

{  Starting with the best of intentions  |  How NOT to make almond butter  }

My ears are ringing like you wouldn't believe and I'm festering in a puddle of failure.

See, I had a few cups of almonds in the freezer and I wanted to make homemade almond butter. But, I made one huge mistake—which led to, what I hope is not permanent, tinnitus.

I've been reading about the benefit of activating nuts to make them easier to digest (which calls for soaking and then drying/dehydrating). So, I soaked my almonds overnight, rinsed them this morning (at 6:58AM—why so early, I have no idea), and then foolishly, foolishly, tossed them right into my blender to begin pulverizing.

Everything I had read online about homemade nut butters say you have to be patient, but at most it will take 10-15 minutes to go from a pile of nuts to smooth, creamy almond (or whichever-nut-have-you) butter. But, a cumulative 55 minutes later, I'm here to tell you, that is rubbish.

Well, rubbish if you do what I did, and soaked your nuts first without drying them properly afterwards.

After my first, mind-splitting 20-minute session, I dumped the nuts back out, spread them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven to try and dry them out. While they were doing the shake-and-bake in the oven, I peeled and diced up some carrots to make carrot-coconut-buckwheat muffins (which thankfully turned out okay, so at least one success this Sunday morning).

When the almonds seemed as dry as I could get them, back in the blender they went, and another few anxiety-ridden, loud-as-hell, blasting-my-ears-off sessions in the Ninja later, I still had a pile of soft, kinda oily, almond mush. Nowhere near butter.

So my sad little almond clumps are now sitting in the fridge, to be turned into some sort of baked good later this week. And once my hearing has returned, I may try this again...with dry nuts.