Golden Peanut Company Peanut Flour Review

Oh peanut butter... how I love you, let me count the ways... Ok-maybe I shouldn't count the ways-we would be here FOREVER! But honestly-peanut butter is so great in anything everything! But sometimes I want the peanut butter flavor, but not the texture... what's a girl to do? Every once in a while I get the itch to have some peanut butter flavor in something, but I know in my baking heart that if I add dense, sticky, heavy (oh so delicious) peanut butter it will completely ruin the product I'm trying to create. :( So what's a girl to do?! 

Cry... Get depressed... Throw a temper tantrum like a 2 year old... Well-those were my first few ideas-but then it hit me like a tennis ball hitting a uncoordinated girl trying to play with one of those automatic tennis ball launchers (yes-this did happen!) anyways-it hit me! Peanut Flour! PERFECT! With peanut flour you can get the taste of peanut flour without the sticky-heavy mess... GENIUS! 

So I began my search for peanut flour... there are a lot of different brands out there-I didn't know where to begin! Luckily for me, one great company The Golden Peanut Company was generous enough to send me a sample of both their 12% Fat, Dark Roast & their 28& Fat, Light Roast Peanut Flour. I was ecstatic! 

As soon as I got my package - I went to work!

I began researching what peanut flour was all about and how to use it. I found a lot of stuff that said you could make it into real 'peanut butter' by adding a little bit of water (about a 1:2 water:peanut flour ratio). I tried this.... umm-I'm going to be honest-not a fan. I didn't know what it was-it was just missing...something... So I thought a little bit, well, a lot of peanut butter companies add a little sugar and salt to their peanut butter for flavor enhancement, so I tried that! Little pinch of salt here, bigger pinch of sugar there... MUCH better :) It really did taste like peanut butter! Not quite as sticky but that was alright!

After I realized how amazing the peanut flour could taste I was overcome with all these crazy GREAT ideas! If I have the power of adding peanut flavor to something and not have to worry about the texture and density ruining the product I could make anything RULE THE WORLD!  Alright, alright...maybe a tad extreme but you never know :)

So let's get down to the review here (although you can probably tell by the previous few paragraphs of crazy rambling that I'm in love!)

First off-texture... Well it is flour by trade, so uh, the texture was flour like? :P In all seriousness, it really did have a flour texture just like any other white, wheat, etc. flour. Once I mixed it with water it had a smooth-not sticky texture. Depending on what you wanted it for, you can basically make it as thick or thin as you want...just change the water amount! So texture = 5/5!

Now taste! I couldn't believe how close it actually tasted to real peanut butter. Since the fat has to be removed for it to become 'flour like' I figured it would be really missing the taste of peanut butter-I was wrong (one of the few times I was actually happy I was wrong about something!) I have to admit, the 28% fat light roast had a much sweeter flavor, while the 12% fat dark roast had a deeper, more bitter taste to it. Both were great-don't get me wrong! But, I think I have to give the dark roast a 3/5 on taste and the light roast a 4/5. In my opinion both needed a little sugar & salt if you're going to eat them like regular peanut butter-but I understand why they leave those out, because in many of the recipes I created with these flours I didn't want the sugar/salt. It was also great because I could adjust these to my personal preference- (I liked mine extra salty, and some people may want theirs more sweet). 

Finally-nutritional info! Generally speaking, peanut flour's nutritional stats look like this:

Nutrition Facts:

Serving Size: 1/4 cup

Amount per Serving

Calories 110

Calories from Fat 36.0

Total Fat 4g

Saturated Fat 0g

Cholesterol 0mg

Sodium 0mg

Total Carbohydrate 8g

Dietary Fiber 0g

Sugars 2g

Protein 16g

Not too shabby! Since, most peanut butter has about 200 calories & 16 grams of fat per 2 TBSP. you can see that peanut flour is a great alternative for those wishing to save a few calories or grams of fat. However-remember that  once you mix with water some will dissolve. I've found that 1/4 cup of peanut flour + 2 TBSP. of water will create 2 TBSP. of 'peanut butter'-but that's still about 1/2 the calories of regular peanut butter! You can also see that peanut flour is FULL of protein-it has more than 2 times the amount as most regular peanut butter! It also has no saturated fat (regular peanut butter usually has about 3 grams), no sodium (until I add salt :P ), and less sugar (again-until I add my sugar). So... for scoring (you can probably guess!) I'm giving Golden Peanut Company's Peanut Flour a 5/5 on nutrition!

Overall: 4/5

I'm in love! There are so many things you can do with this product! ...recipes to come! :) Be sure to check out Golden Peanut Co's website here, at that website they sell in bulk 50lb. packages. They also sell in retail sizes at http://www.byrdmill.com/. Here is a little flyer about their peanut flour: 

So tell me-have you tried peanut flour? Did you like it? Did you create anything spectacular with it that you'd like to share?