Make this delicious and nutritious butter recipe using just one ingredient, sunflower seeds, which pairs perfectly with your preferred snacks.
Ingredients:
2 cups raw Sunflower seeds
Directions:
Roast the sunflower seeds
This step helps the seeds start releasing some of their natural oils and enhances the flavor. However, if you'd prefer to make raw sunflower seed butter, then you can skip this step.
Spread the raw sunflower seeds across a baking sheet. Then, roast the seeds in the oven at 330ºF/165ºC (fan assisted) for 8 minutes, or until the seeds are golden brown. Remove the sunflower seeds from the oven and leave them on one side until cool to the touch.
Blend the seeds into a smooth butter
Pour the sunflower seeds into your food processor or blender and blend till smooth. During this process, the seeds will go through several stages.
First, they'll be ground into a fine meal. Then they will start to thicken up and form a ball, then a thick paste, and finally a smooth, creamy sunflower butter.
Do this in intervals of around 2-3 minutes, so the seeds (and your machine) don't overheat. The longer you blend, the runnier consistency of the seed butter will be.
If you don't have a processor/blender that auto scrapes down the sides, you should do that every time you pause the machine to make sure all the seeds are blended till super smooth.
This process can take as little as 2 minutes, 15 minutes, or even 30+ depending on your machine.
If you're using raw sunflower seeds, you might find that they won't move past the powdery/ball stage. At that point, you may need to add a tablespoon of neutral oil to get the machine working.
Once the homemade sunflower seed butter is ready, transfer it to an airtight glass container.
You can store the sunflower butter in the refrigerator for at least 6 weeks. Make sure to use clean utensils every time you use some.
At nine years old, Ben Gaffney asked if he could work alongside his father, a chef, at Congress Rotisserie in New Haven. The elder Gaffney put the boy to work washing dishes for two years, in the hope that it would discourage his interest in the restaurant business.
But a calling is a calling. Ben Gaffney has spent his life since then pursuing the wonders of food, bringing Middlefield along for the ride as chef at Lyman Orchards since 2017.
