In the hinterland west of the cafe, was a local organic macadamia farm who produced the most amazing organic macadamia butter. This stuff is liquid gold, tastes like crack, and we could not buy enough of it. The farmers would only come to town once a week and, without fail, the jars we had for sale would be sold out by the next delivery. We purchased 1.9kg of the roasted smooth butter and started to use it in everything. We loved using it in raw slices, on our bircher bowls and famously in our vegan macadamia toastie, which customers lovingly named the "crack toastie".
If you can get your hands on some, we highly recommend it but if you want to have a go at making your own nut butter, it's so easy. All you need is a food processor or high speed blender, any oily nut like almonds, cashews or macadamias, and some salt. I prefer macadamia nuts for their mild and creamy, butter-like flavour and for the fact that they are native to Australia and grown on the east coast where I live. Fresh nuts always taste better than store bought, so if you can source a local farm nearby, it's worth it.
It's up to you how much you want to make, it is seriously just two ingredients, macadamias and salt. We highly recommend making a roasted butter, but you can try raw if you prefer.
You will need:
1 - 2 cups macadamias - raw unsalted.
pinch of salt
1. Roast macadamias until golden and set aside to cool. If you want a raw butter, then skip this step.
2. Once cooled, blend macadamias and salt on a high speed, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl frequently. It will take a little while to get to the butter consistency. There will be a few stages: from whole nuts, to crumbly, to a paste, to a combined sticky ball. Continue to blend and scrape the sides until you get to a smoother consistency.
3. Keep blending until you reach a fine nutty texture and everything becomes smooth and oily. If it seems runny don't worry, it will firm up in the fridge.
4. Store in a clean glass jar or container in the fridge for up to a month.
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