What?
Tabletop rotary mill. The Peanut Butter Maker (£49.99, Prezzybox.com) funnels shelled nuts on to grinding discs, while oil from a pipette is periodically administered; the resultant paste is collected below.
Why?
I am not going to explain to you why the ability to make your own peanut butter is awesome.
Well?
“Fill the bin with your nuts” is the booklet’s first instruction, which sounds like it was written on a stag do. It’s referring to the plastic basket positioned over the mechanism, but there must be a more appetising word for it than “bin”. I’m guessing they didn’t employ a subeditor, or if they did, they paid him peanuts. I doubt a designer was involved either – the thing looks like a child’s toy rather than a kitchen contender. Near the base, badly printed, are some other nuts that can be butterised: almond, cashew, hazelnut and, amusingly, acadamia (maybe it’s good for grinding up gone-to-seed professors). Let’s have a go at peanut butter.
I – ahem – fill the bin with my nuts, position the flimsy oil dispenser and turn it on. I’m not exaggerating when I say this compact machine produces the loudest noise I have ever heard indoors. It’s an astonishing, blisteringly antisocial noise, a power drill on a Sunday morning. It’s like I’m pushing a lawnmower up a gravel drive. Meanwhile, at the front, the machine pumps out a slurry resembling cat sick, which drips feebly into a smaller plastic bin. Thankfully, there isn’t much of it.
Without enthusiasm, I stir in some honey, smear on toast and have a nibble … it’s delicious. Chunky, gum-smackingly thick, a touch of sweet and salt. This is weird. I try again, with pistachios. This effort looks even more like catsick – a beige shade of feline vomitus with bits of grass in – and, again, is delicious. The cognitive dissonance is giving me a headache, or would if the noise of the machine hadn’t given me tinnitus.
So: bit of a curate’s egg, this one. The fact is it’s not doing anything a blender wouldn’t do more efficiently and quietly. If you must have it, I recommend you keep a couple of peanuts back to shove in your ears.
Redeeming features?
It’s slim and makes good nut butter, but so does Gwyneth Paltrow and I wouldn’t leave her in charge of breakfast either.
Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?
Back of the cupboard. Or simply fill the bin.
[“source-theguardian”]
