Sunflower Butter

I tried to follow several recipes at once today. Maybe not my best idea, but it all worked out in the end. I’ll split them into three posts for the sake of organization. I’ll start with the sunflower spread; because that was the first recipe I tackled. This recipe came from Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks (http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/cinnamon-vanilla-sunflower-butter-recipe.html). It’s a simple sunflower butter made in the food processor, and I look forward to using it throughout the week.

Roasted Sunflower seeds --> Sunflower Butter

Here are the ingredients:

2 cups of sunflower seeds

~¼ cup of sunflower oil

½ teaspoon salt

Seeds from 2 plump vanilla beans

3 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven: 325º F

Roast the sunflower seeds on a rimmed baking sheet. Stir the seeds partway through; this process took me about 15 minutes in total.

Unroasted versus Roasted Seeds

Once cooled, puree the seeds with 1 tablespoon of the oil and salt. Add 2 more tablespoons of oil while the food processor is running. I found that the mixture took a while to get through the “coarse” stage to the smooth stage. I just continued adding ingredients and gave the food processor breaks when necessary. Be sure to scrape down the sides- as well as the compounded mass stuck below the blade. Add the seeds and cinnamon and continue pulsing. You really just need to keep pureeing the mixture; I found myself giving the food processor breaks and just blending everything by hand using the back of a spoon. Be patient, the butter is worth it in the end. I would highly recommend using photos as a reference, because the butter goes from course to shiny and smooth.

Finished Product