Rum use #2: Rum Butter

The slab of rum butter is currently in the freezer chilling. All in all, it took about 20 minutes to pull together, though i did it by hand, so it should not have taken nearly that long. i saw this in Nigella Feasts on the weekend and thought i'd give it a shot. it requires a few tablespoons of ground almonds, icing sugar, a stick of butter, and some rum.

my main plan for this is some amazing french toast, and i can't immediately speak to any other uses before a proper tasting.

you begin this by creaming a stick of room temp. butter with a cup of powdered sugar (1/2 cup at a time, either sift it in or watch for lumps to squish) until white. i did this by hand and was slow and deliberate, though this really is a great recipe to use an electric mixer or food processor for, considering how much menial labor (whisking, folding, creaming, whisking again) is involved.

then again, i'm all for menial labor, especially when tinkering with something new. i feel that with regards to unchartered culinary waters, the repeated successes of a recipe begins with putting one's time in on the first try, and settling in for attempting things the long way. i find myself observing more carefully, poking and prodding more often, and understanding the progress and stages of completion more fully when i'm using my hands.

after everything is creamed together, it's going to get a lot less stiff than when you first started adding the sugar. by this time the sugar has melted and acts on the butter as a wet ingredient rather than as a dry one. slowly tighten the butter up by adding 50g (3 tablespoons and a teaspoon, but approximation is completely fine) ground almonds. almonds and rum seem to go very well together, almost tasting like amaretto.

so after the almonds have been incorporated, slowly add the rum. i mean slowly here, or else you'll end up looking down at something that looks curdled, and that will splash around and inevitably make you smell like a pirate. better yet, add this to a food processor or mixer and drizzle it in.

i added 3 tablespoons, but anywhere between one and a zillion tablespoons are fine. just keep in mind that the alcohol hasn't been cooked out, so don't go throwing this on a hot pan and then bending over right into it, and adding more than another tablespoon than i used might require a little more almonds or sugar to keep up some structural integrity.