The Delicious New Pantry Staple I’ve Eaten Every Morning This Week

Nut butter is one of my major food groups. If I don’t have a jar in my pantry, all is wrong in the world. I’d recently tried a new-to-me jar of chocolate almond butter (it tastes like fudgy brownie batter!), and was on the hunt for my next nutty spread. Enter: Big Spoon Roasters.

The small-batch nut butters promise big flavors (think: Lum Lum Thai Curry, Bourbon Pecan, and even a Wag Butter for dogs). To get a tiny taste of what Big Spoon’s working with, I sampled the winter mix variety pack (which is actually available year-round). It contains four mini (3-ounce) jars of seasonal hits: Vanilla Caramel, Chai Spice, Chocolate Sea Salt, and Carrot Cake. 

I love options! And after tasting my way through the mini jars, there’s one I can’t wait to reorder — in a much larger size.

Big Spoon Roasters was co-founded in 2011 by two nut butter lovers, Mark and Megan, who originally sold their products at bicycle races and farmers markets. The company’s mission is rooted in creating food that’s good for people and the planet. To do so, Big Spoon Roasters sources high-quality ingredients from sustainable farmers that share their values, pays workers fair wages, and touts a “nearly waste-free” production process that includes the use of recycled paper labels and cruelty-free cleaning products.

Each jar (or bar) is roasted, toasted, measured, and mixed by hand, according to Big Spoon Roasters’ website, and is gluten-, soy-, GMO-, refined sugar-, and palm-oil free. The products are also vegan and contain bee-friendly almonds.

Big Spoon Roasters’ Carrot Cake Almond & Walnut Butter first launched in April 2020 as a seasonal item, and has since become a year-round staple. Heirloom mission almonds, English walnuts, organic maple syrup, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and Jacobsen sea salt are ground together to replicate the flavor of the spiced layer cake.

It comes in two sizes — a mini 3-ounce jar ($7.75) and larger 13-ounce jar ($15.99) — which you can find on Big Spoon Roasters’ website or Amazon, and in select retailers across the country, including Eataly, Bi-Rite, Erewhon, and New Leaf Community Markets.

A good carrot cake has just the right balance of spice, and is sweet but not overpoweringly so, with a thick layer of rich cream cheese frosting on top. It’s hard to imagine packing all that flavor into a jar, but this nut butter 1000% did. It truly is DELICIOUS.

The warming spices — the cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice — are prominent, and the almonds and walnuts provide the perfect nutty backdrop for them to shine. The maple syrup adds a hint of sweetness. It’s everything I love about carrot cake (without any actual carrots)! 

And the texture! It’s a nice mix of smooth and chunky — there are little pieces of almond and walnut throughout, but it still lusciously coats your tongue. 

I drizzled some over maple yogurt with homemade granola, which made for the ultimate fall snack. I’ve also made carrot cake oatmeal before, and a spoonful of this on top would be heaven.

The only downside was how small the mini jar is (the other flavors were delicious too, by the way). I’m already making room in my pantry for a bigger one and planning on what flavors to try next.

Buy: Big Spoon Roasters Carrot Cake Almond & Walnut Butter, $15.99 for 13 ounces 

This article originally published on The Kitchn. See it there: The “Delicious” Pantry Staple I’ve Eaten Every Morning This Week