From the Cookbook: Hell’s Kitchen Peanut Butter

I should warn you, this isn’t your typical peanut butter, it’s more of a peanut spread with butter in it.  Whatever you call it, it’s delicious.  If you’ve never been to Minneapolis, you’re probably thinking this peanut butter comes from the television show with Chef Gordon Ramsay.  It’s not.  It is from an amazing restaurant in Minneapolis.  They have jars of this peanut butter on the table for all to enjoy, FOR FREE!  They should definitely be charging for every bite, it is that amazing!  You can buy it by the jar from their website.  Or you can make it yourself and avoid the shipping charges!  Peanuts, honey, brown sugar, butter.  What’s not to love about that?  It’s going to be amazing on the fresh wheat bread I plan to make tomorrow.

The flavor of this peanut butter comes from roasting your peanuts, and finding the perfect roast is key.  Here’s how mine looked after roasting for 17 minutes.  As you can see, the color is close to that of a brown crayon.  The skins are close to the crayon itself, and the nut inside is close to the color of the crayon wrapper.  This ended up being just a little too dark.  Next time I will probably roast for about 12 minutes.

Here’s how you make it:

HELL’S KITCHEN PEANUT BUTTER (adapted from Damn Good Food, 157 Recipes from Hell’s Kitchen by Mitch Omer and Ann Bauer)

3 cups salted Spanish peanuts, skin on

6 TBS honey

5 TBS light brown sugar

2 1/2 tsp kosher salt

7 TBS peanut oil

5 TBS unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 375.  Roast peanuts on baking sheet on the center rack of the oven.  Roast for approximately 10-15 minutes, stirring the peanuts every 5 minutes.  When roasted to a chestnut color, remove from oven and cool to room temperature.

Place peanuts in a food processor and process on low until nuts are finely ground, about 30 seconds.  Put ground nuts into bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Add honey, brown sugar, and salt.  Mix on low speed until thickened and well mixed.

Add peanut oil and butter to the food processor. Pulse until completely emulsified.  Add butter mixture to peanut mixture and mix on low until well mixed.

Spoon into air-tight container.  This will keep  up to 4 weeks at room temperature.   Some separation can be expected after settling; simply stir the separated oil back in before serving.