Melrose's ABC Spread

One of my mother's favourite nut butters is Melrose's ABC Spread. "ABC" stands for almonds, brazils and cashews, and they make up 33%, 34% and 33% of the butter respectively.

Upon opening the jar (or even when the lid is still on) you will see a layer of oil floating on top of the nuts. Melrose explains that:

Unlike most peanut butters the natural oils in Melrose nut spreads are not subjected to hydrogenation. In normal spreads this hydrogenation turns liquid oils into solids so that they will not separate out. However hydrogenation also produces Trans fatty acids and these have negative health effects.

Melrose nut spreads contain only natural oils. Melrose Nut spreads contain no hydrogenated Oils. Melrose nut spreads contain no Trans fats.

So what you do with the layer of oil, is to stir it well into the nuts below. Do not throw away the oil, otherwise your nut butter is going to be really dry and cracked up! As the jar was small, I used a teaspoon to mix the oil and nuts. A better method would probably have been to first use a butter knife to pierce holes into the gluey nut base and to stir it up a little, and then to use a dessert fork to mash down the clumps against the sides of the jar.

Even though there were equal propotions of nuts in this nut butter, it tasted predominantly of cashews. As I chewed further, the meatiness of the brazil nuts came out with a hint of almonds. The cashews tasted a little raw to me even though Melrose says that its nuts are lightly roasted, and I think it would taste better if the nuts were more heavily roasted. Proper roasting would also help destroy the toxins in cashews.

Nonetheless, it was delicious, and before I knew it, I had finished half the jar with a teaspoon (oops).

You can find Melrose's ABC Spread at NTUC Fairprice for S$13.95 a jar (250g).