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:
Very cool! Never tried peanut flour...not yet! It looks like I will have to try it out!
ReplyDeleteSounds delicious!
ReplyDeleteI think so too!
Delete