Scoop Wholefoods Master Class in Making Peanut Butter

Alfie asks a lot of questions.

So many questions.

It can be exhausting and sometimes I reach my threshold and find myself saying, ‘We’re now going to have half an hour where you don’t ask me any questions. I’m setting the timer.’ And in that half hour Alfie will find other people to target.

Like recently when we were in Scoop Wholefoods and he spied the peanut butter making machine. ‘What’s this?’ he asked Bettina, the owner, but that was just his first question. He followed it up with, ‘How does it work?’ And, ‘Are these the peanuts?’ and ‘What does this button do?’ and ‘How loud is the motor?’ and ‘Are you making some now?’ and ‘Can I have a turn?’

The peanut butter machine

Well no, Bettina wasn’t making any that afternoon but sensing Alfie was very intrigued she invited him to come in early one morning before the shop opens to operate the machine and make his very own jar of peanut butter. Excellent! Another school holiday outing scheduled.

The very serious business of hand washing

One day this week we walked to Scoop with Alfie saying, ‘This is the earliest we have ever been to the shops, isn’t it?’ as he held our glass jar (previously purchased at Scoop) that we were bringing back to fill with peanut butter.

Peanuts going into the machine

First we had the very serious business of hand washing then it was time to put on the gloves and Bettina found him a seat in front of the machine. Bettina scooped the nuts into the top of the gadget and told us that to make peanut butter with lovely consistency you have to buy the right kind of peanuts. You can’t use raw peanuts as they won’t release the oil so you’ll end up with very, very dry peanut butter and you can’t use roasted peanuts because they won’t give you a good result either. You have to use peanuts that have been lightly roasted as this helps them release the oil.

All boys love those red buttons

So Alfie was ready to get going and he told Bettina we wanted to make crunchy peanut butter so the dial was turned to the ‘crunchy’ sign. Ready to go, he positioned our jar then pressed the red button. All boys love to press red buttons! Alfie rotated the jar as the peanut butter started to appear then gave the jar a shake to help the contents settle while continuing to fill the jar. He made six jars of crunchy and three glasses of smooth.

Keeping his finger on that red button

He was amazed that the only ingredient you need to make peanut butter is peanuts! Scoop Wholefoods sells a lot of peanut butter because everyone likes the fact they know exactly what’s gone into those jars – nuts!