During the last two weeks, I have given a lot of tutorials on multivariate statistics and earned some additional money that came just in time to do something about my miserable blenderlessness. This, by the way is a funny thing: as soon as I am in the happy situation to have some leftover money, one of my vital household or kitchen appliances decides to go belly up, so there the money leaves me again … Gah.

De mortuis nihil nisi bene, but my old blender had its limits. For example, a while ago, I found this incredibly appealing recipe for homemade nut butter on a blog, and since that day, the idea of trying this out myself has haunted me. In a nutshell: using my old blender, my attempt resulted in almond crumbles. So it dawned on me that it was time for a bigger investment, because in a situation like this, when you are going to buy something that you will use every day and have certain expectations of, you are better off with not making false economies. I took a deep breath and went for really big. (Well, not Vitamix big, but maximum affordably big.) And I ordered a spaceship.

This, my friends, the blender butler. (He comes from a German company called Gastroback, in case you are interested.) Let me introduce him a little.

First of all, I find him quite handsome. He can be taken apart easily (what delights me when I think of future cleaning activities), the container is made of glass, and everything seems to be well-made. This is a real improvement, because my old blender had a plastic container, and the blade element could not be taken off which made it difficult to clean.

The blades are shaped in a way that makes the food move from the edges into the middle and be blended nicely and evenly. There are five different speed levels, extra programs for smoothies and ice crushing, a pulse blending function, and a time display.

Then it was time for a crucial test, so the first thing I made was …

Almond Butter

1 cup

Ingredients

200 g (1 1/2 cups) almonds

Directions

Put the almonds into the blender and start blending. I used a lower (chopping) speed at first. After a few seconds, you will get almond flour.

The ground almonds tend to accumulate at the walls of the container, so you have to stop blending, take off the lid, and carefully scrape off the almonds with a spoon so they fall down onto the blades. Then put the lid on again and continue blending. I used the highest speed from now on. Whenever you observe that the almonds accumulate at the walls again, stop blending, open, and scrave them off. I had to do this around two or three times. After some more blending, the almonds will start clumping together, and a few minutes of total high-speed blending time later, you will end up with this.

Wonderful, home-made almond butter! I have calculated that I save around 5 to 10 Euro per jar if I make it myself, compared to buying it at the store (depending on whether it still contains almond skins or not). This is totally worth the 10 minutes I needed for making it and cleaning up the mess. And, of course, this.

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