Bourbon Maple Pecan Butter

It’s that time of every once in a while where I’m staring into my pantry trying to use things up and cycle things out before things expire/rot/become forgotten, and as a result we have this bourbon maple pecan butter.

I’m not sure if you or your relations have the issue with over-buying large bags of nuts at your local warehouse club, but my mom does. It happens pre-holiday and then somewhere around June, I inherit a large bag of pecans, walnuts or almonds “because I bake so much” and will use them up.

I do not bake so much. I am one person and work from home so whereas I used to bake so much, that is a trait from a former life.

In any case, I was going my freezer and found a half bag of pecans and knew I had to use them up.  I needed a recipe that would use up a lot of nuts at once and something that I would be happy to eat. Nuts, I’ve found, are much like spinach in the way that a large quantity becomes a much smaller quantity when processed. And, ho! I have a nut butter every morning with breakfast. Done and done.

I wanted to give this pecan nut butter hints of fall because unlike other nuts, pecans to me just have a fall vibe. Is that just me? I also happened to have about ¼ cup left in my maple syrup bottle even though maple actually should give us all spring vibes (as I found out a few years ago), it just doesn’t!  Add to this a growing-dusty bottle of bourbon and viola! A recipe.

One key step that I don’t think should be overlooked is toasting the nuts. It really does make such a difference and if you really don’t want to do it yourself (or are prone to burning them, like I often am), Trader Joe’s has some righteous salted and roasted pecans that will work just swell (and also, you should buy them anyway because they are one of my TJ’s faves).

I also opted to use vanilla bean paste in this recipe because I didn’t want the nuts to become overly liquid-y and with the syrup and bourbon, I feared it would. If you don’t have VB paste, no worries, extract will do you fine.

A date with a food processor or Vitamix, and more than a few taste tests and we’re done, ready for your toast, bowl of oatmeal or simply just out of the jar. There is no wrong way.