Homemade Nutter Butters

Leveling up my peanut butter cookie game. # 307: Homemade Nutter Butters

Why are Nutter Butters so delicious? These annoyingly addictive cookies have been around since 1969, and are one of the few packaged cookies that I can’t resist. This version is more chewy than crispy and I’m here for it!

I found this Nutter Butter TV ad from the 1970s, and it’s giving Willy Wonka meets Mr. Peanut vibes.

While grinding peanuts into a paste goes back to the Incas, the sweetened version we’re used to now wasn’t commercially sold in the US until 1895. John Harvey Kellogg promoted it as a healthier protein alternative to meat for patients who had a hard time chewing. That’s of course ignoring the fact that peanut butter practically glues your mouth shut if you eat it straight from the jar… And while I’d probably pick a PB&J over a steak, I think I’m in the minority on that one.

Fun fact for your next bar trivia night: Skippy Peanut Butter was created in Alameda, CA! It was produced by The Rosefield Packing Company starting in late 1920s and was the first hydrogenated version of peanut butter in the US (which makes it so shelf-stable, it’s practically immortal.) It’s hard to imagine a huge peanut butter plant on Webster St where the Walgreens is now… but with 90 employees, it was actually the biggest peanut butter manufacturer in the US at the time. It closed in 1974, and I really want to go back in time to tour it.

I unintentionally got into making my own peanut butter during 2020 and it’s hard to go back. All it takes is dry roasted peanuts, honey, salt and a food processor. It’s nice to be able to control the sweet / salty levels myself, and it feels pretty cool to wave a magic wand and turn a bowl of peanuts into a jar of peanut butter.

Isn’t he the cutest? I keep refilling him from a bigger bottle of maple syrup because he makes me so happy.

Feeling artsy in that afternoon light.

If your ingredients are coming straight out of the fridge, I wouldn’t try and whisk it by hand. If everything is room temp, then it won’t break your wrist!

She’s ready.

But the question is, will they stick together after baking like the cute peanuts they’re supposed to be? Stay tuned.

The cross-hatch pattern that is ubiquitous with peanut butter cookies is simply a stylistic choice. You do need to squish the cookies flat in order to have the dense dough bake evenly, but a spatula or water glass would do the trick. I think someone way back when realized the fork marks made the cookies look more like peanut shells and the rest is history.