Almond butter. I should have asked this question before I bought it: Does anyone here use almond butter? Tell me about it.
I like almonds and really, really like marzipan. Almond paste is an ingredient I like to keep in pantry, even though it's not inexpensive. It's essential for making almond raisin bread, one of my favorites.
Thus the idea of almond butter intrigued me. I was envisioning something that looked like peanut butter but tasted like almond paste. Sort of like Biscoff (Speculoos), perhaps, but with a marzipan flavor. That would have been awesome.
I'd been put off by the price of almond butter, so when Publix offered this on a buy-one-get-one-free sale, I jumped at the chance. Now I'm stuck with two jars of something that tastes rather like bad peanut butter. Don't get me wrong; I like peanut butter. But when one is expecting almond, peanut doesn't cut it—especially not at an almond price.
The ingredients don't seem unreasonable: dry roasted almonds, organic evaporated cane sugar, palm oil, sea salt. I'm going to try it in some recopies to see if it tastes better than by the spoonful, but I'm not particularly hopeful.
My take? If you're allergic to peanuts (but not almonds), and really want a substitute for peanut butter, this would work well. Otherwise, forget it.
What's your experience? Did I get a bad jar? A bad brand? Or just make a bad assumption about what almond butter should taste like?
My guess is that you were expecting something sweeter?
To me, almond butter and natural peanut butter are not that tasty and they are a pain in the neck to use - thick and you have to mix in the oil. They tell you to stir it, but I found that extremely difficult to do. I always made a mess because the oil comes up near to the brim of the jar. Unless someone can explain to me what I am doing wrong, I have given up.
I suppose you can get used to and even like the flavor, but I think I'll stay with Skippy.
Almond butter is good. It has protein, but lots of fat. When I use it, I eat it by itself. I don't stir the oil in. I pour it off. I like foods that come from plants.
P.S. The production of palm oil is problematic. https://wordpress.clarku.edu/id125-envpro/2016/11/01/the-harming-results-of-palm-oil-plantations/
Peter Pan for me, when I want peanut butter. This is not like the "natural" peanut butter that has no salt nor sugar, and to my mind tastes awful—though the grandkids like it. So it is somewhat sweet, but like peanut butter, not like marzipan, so lack of sweetness is probably part of my problem. But mostly it is lack of almond flavor.
Diane, since peanuts are also from plants, what makes almond butter better in your mind? Does it taste like almonds to you?
I have developed an allergy to some nuts. Almonds don't affect me. I can have some, once in a while. I don't think almond butter is better than any other nut butter. I, too, like marzipan, but I have to be careful with sugar.
