Nutty for kosher nut butters

Five jars arrived — pine nut butter; hazelnut and carob; almond delight; chocolate halva and pecan and figs (sic) spread. Who knew nut butters could be so exciting?

I’ve tasted them all. The pale beige pine nut butter — on my Friday night challah — was delicious. Pine nuts - in a spread! I’m wondering how to use it in my cooking. Perhaps thinned down as a dressing? Or in baking? They suggest over pasta or as a dip. I'll get experimenting for yom tov. (Since writing this post, I used it instead of tahina in a roasted cauliflower salad. It was genius! Utterly delicious.) 

The two choc spreads — chocolate halva and hazelnut and carob — are what I’d term as ‘healthy chocalikes. With no sweeteners, they’ll never compare with the sugar and additive laden Nutella-style of spreads that my children adore; but you could get used to that and I can see that they’d add an indulgent note to a bowl of porridge. Or, perhaps you could add a slather of honey or date molasses at the same time and totally tart up your breakfast toast or pile of pancakes. The halva one pairs tahina with chocolate, but with no sugar, is definitely not halva but it does taste very chocolatey though.

My favourites are the almond delight, which mixes smooth almond butte with rosewater and ground up raisins for a bit of sweetness. Addictively good. I’m happy to spoon it in neat, but it would be great on yoghurt, porridge or pancakes.

Number one for me was the crunchy pecan and fig spread, which combines pecan nuts, . So good that I had to start using it to avoid eating the entire jar. I needed something to take to a friend’s parents, so I swapped it for the peanut butter in a Mary Berry recipe for peanut butter cookies, adding chopped up pecans and soft-dried figs to make pecan and fig cookies. They are delicious .

Here’s the recipe:

Pecan and fig cookies

Makes: 24

Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour plus a little more to add if sticky
150g softened butter
½ tsp salt
50g Nutural World pecan and fig butter
80g soft light brown sugar
40g golden caster sugar
40g chopped pecan nuts
60g chopped soft dried figs
1 large egg, beaten

Method:

• Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan) and line two large baking sheets with baking paper.
  
• Put the flour in a bowl and add the butter, nut butter and sugar. Rub with your finger tips to until it starts to clump together then add the egg and bring the rest together to make a soft dough. Knead in the chopped nuts and figs. 
  
• If the dough is too sticky to handle add a tablespoon or two of flour, gradually until it is becomes possible to roll it into balls.
  
• Divide into 24 balls, place them (well-spaced) on the baking sheets.
  
• Flatten each one with a damp fork (dip it in water between each biscuit) and then bake for 12 – 15 minutes. They should be pale golden brown.
• Cool for 5 minutes on the tray and then when firm enough to move, transfer to a wire rack.