Name: Homemade Maple-Pumpkin Spice Peanut Butter
Total time: 35 min
Yield: Serves 8 (Makes about 1 cup)
Ingredients: 2 cups dry-roasted peanuts; ¼ cup peanut or vegetable oil; 2 tablespoons maple syrup; 1½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice; ½ teaspoon table salt

Why This Recipe Works

Making your own peanut butter is empowering; you can customize the ingredients and control the final texture. It's also fun, less expensive than buying prepared peanut butter, and easy—all it takes is a food processor, some dry-roasted peanuts, peanut or vegetable oil, maple syrup, pumpkin pie spice, and salt for warm and comforting fall-inspired flavors. After around 30 seconds of processing, the peanuts will have the texture of coarse, wet sand. After about 1 minute, all the peanuts will have been broken up, and a ball will begin to form. Keep processing—after 1½ minutes, a grainy paste will form. At the 3-minute mark, you'll have spreadable peanut butter. We preferred a smoother texture, so we continued to process for 1 more minute to yield a peanut butter worth making at home.

Before You Begin

To control the salt level, we developed this recipe with unsalted peanuts. If you can find only salted dry-roasted peanuts, omit the salt and season to taste before serving.

Instructions

Process all ingredients in food processor until smooth, about 4 minutes (mixture will initially form clumps but will eventually thin out), scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as needed.

Transfer to 1-cup jar and let cool completely, about 20 minutes. Serve. (Peanut butter can be stored at room temperature for up to 2 months. Stir to incorporate any oil that has separated before serving.)