Nut butter spreads out

o Pistachio butter with cardamom

o Cashew butter with ginger

o Almond butter with espresso syrup

o Peanut butter with toasted coconut and dried pineapple

o Pecan butter with toffee bits

o Peanut butter with cinnamon and raisins

o Hazelnut butter with chocolate

o Walnut butter with cinnamon

o Peanut butter with crisp, crumbled bacon

o Peanut butter with cayenne and garlic paste

NUT BUTTER SECRETS

Roast the nuts to boost their flavor before you turn them into nut butter.

Use a full-size food processor, not a mini. You’ll burn a mini’s motor out before the butter is the right texture.

If you use a blender for nut butter, spray the inside first with cooking spray.

Most nut butters need a little oil. Add it slowly. You can always add more. But once it’s in, there’s no going back.

Adding a little dairy butter, as well as oil, will give the spread nice flavor and texture.

A little honey or agave syrup adds sweetness, without the grit of sugar.

Despite what it says on the label, all classic supermarket peanut butter is creamy. If you’re trying to replicate the texture of commercial chunky-style, make smooth peanut butter and mix nut bits in.

For perfectly smooth nut butter, grind the nuts longer and give them a cooling-off period halfway through. The heat from the food processor helps the fat in the nuts melt, Bruce Weinstein says, but at a certain point, the oils begin to separate: “If you want to be a perfectionist, as soon as it starts getting a little oily, let it cool off for an hour, then start again.”

There are few things more all-American than peanut butter, and we’re not just talking about those iconic jars of Skippy and Jif. Their cousins — the all-natural, coarse-ground peanut, almond, walnut and other nut butter brethren — have been around since the days of peace, love and tie-dyed T-shirts.

But something has happened in the nut butter aisles that goes far beyond that Italian interloper, Nutella. All of a sudden, nut butters have gone artisanal with small batch jars and intriguing flavor twists.

New York City’s Lee Zalben of Peanut Butter and Co. may have been one of the first to start swirling upscale jam and maple syrup into his all-natural peanut butter. But he’s been joined by legions of others, including a pair of University of Oregon students who launched their own Wild Squirrel line of coconut-raisin and vanilla-espresso nut butters last year.

But here’s the thing: You don’t need anything fancy to do that at home — just nuts, a pinch of salt, a food processor and a little imagination, says Alana Chernila, the farmers market expert behind the new “Homemade Pantry” cookbook (Clarkson Potter, $24.99, 288 pages).

Chernila is no fly-by-night DIYer. The Massachusetts mom and food writer makes her family’s crackers, hot sauce, Pop-Tarts and 98 other comestibles. Nut butter, she says, is one of the easiest and most customizable do-it-yourself projects around.

“Everyone has different preferences. They want sweet or salty,” she says. “You can create the nut butter of your dreams.”

That sense of limitless possibility was what prompted Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough’s nut butter experiments when they were working on their “Ultimate Peanut Butter Book” (Harper Collins, $16.99, 256 pages). Soon they were combining cardamom and pistachios, ginger and toasted cashews, and pumpkin seeds and pecans.

“Don’t forget your meat products,” says Weinstein, who grew up in San Carlos. “Crispy crumbled bacon is a lovely thing mashed into a peanut or almond butter.”

Along the way, these nut butter aficionados discovered a few key things, too. There are ways to achieve that silky supermarket style, but it takes a little food processor finesse (see tips).

“You have to play it by ear and be open to improvising as you go,” Weinstein says. “Is this too stiff? What’s going on in my food processor?”

Most nuts need a little help in the oil department. You can use canola oil, but it’s better to use a flavorful oil that complements the nut, peanut oil in peanut butter, and walnut oil for walnut butter.

“It’s the same calories whether it’s tasteless or has a lot of flavor,” Weinstein says. “There’s a reason nobody canola oils their bread.”

If you’re using a blender, be forewarned, says Mollie Katzen, the James Beard award-winning author of such classics as “The Moosewood Cookbook.” Making nut butter is “a very cool thing to do,” she says, “but the hardest work is getting the stuff out of the blender.”

The Berkeley food writer gives her blender a spritz of nonstick spray before she starts. Homemade nut butters are a great project to do with kids — “You see the light bulb go off,” Katzen says. “Oh my god, peanut butter is nuts!” But getting the nut mixture out of a blender or food processor’s blades is a job for a grown-up.

Have fun with flavors, but if you’re taking a shortcut by using flavored nuts — honey-roasted cashews, for example — be wary of flavor intensity and salt.

Use a light hand with flavorings and don’t flavor the whole batch.

“How often am I going to be in the mood for tropical peanut butter?” Weinstein says. “Quite honestly, if I wanted to have a tropical peanut butter sandwich, I’d rather take some peanut butter out and stir in some toasted, shredded coconut and dried pineapple than have a quart of that sitting in the pantry.”

But all bets are off when chocolate enters the picture.

“A natural version of nutella is dangerous,” Katzen says. “It’s hard to stop eating it.”

Homemade Nut Butter

Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Alana Chernila, “The Homemade Pantry” (Clarkson Potter, $24.99, 288 pages)

1 pound (3 1/2 cups) shelled, raw nuts

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste

2 teaspoons honey

1-4 tablespoons canola or peanut oil, depending on nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread the nuts on a baking sheet and roast for 10-15 minutes, or just until they begin to brown. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and allow the nuts to cool slightly.

Place the nuts, salt and honey in the bowl of a food processor. Blend for 20 seconds. With the motor still running, drizzle a tablespoon of oil into the bowl through the chute in the lid, and process for 30 seconds. If the nut butter is still dry, continue to blend and add additional oil, a little at a time. Process for up to another minute to reach your desired consistency. Taste and adjust for salt, if needed, and stir in any flavorings you wish.

Keeps refrigerated in a covered container for up to 1 month.

Roasted Peanut Relish

Makes 1 cup

Note: This garlicky chutney is a staple in Maharashtra, India. Mix with softened, unsalted butter for a zesty sandwich spread or smear the spicy butter on a grilled steak or steamed vegetables.

1 cup roasted peanuts

1/2 teaspoon garlic paste (see recipe)

1 teaspoon cayenne, or 1/2 teaspoon each cayenne and paprika

Salt

In a spice grinder, pulse-grind the peanuts into a coarse powder. Scrape into a small bowl. Mix in the garlic, cayenne and salt to taste. The texture should be rather lumpy. Store in refrigerator.

Walnut Butter

Makes 1 cup

Mollie Katzen, www.walnuts.org, Note: You can make walnut butter using raw, soaked or toasted walnuts. See step 1 to decide which you prefer.

2 cups walnuts

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons walnut or vegetable oil, or as needed

Honey to taste, optional

Cinnamon to taste, optional

Use raw walnuts for a very creamy and smooth texture that tastes like a just-shelled walnut. Walnuts that have been soaked overnight, then toasted at 350 degrees for 15 minutes to dry them out, offer a more textured walnut butter. Toasting unsoaked walnuts for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees will result in a sweet, nutty-flavored, coarse-textured butter.

Place the walnuts in the bowl of a food processor and grind them until they become sticky or pastelike.

Add the salt. Add the oil, a little bit at a time until the walnut butter binds together. Add small touches of honey and/or cinnamon to taste.

Garlic Paste

Makes 1/2 cup

Ruta Kahate, “Quick-Fix Indian” (Andrews McMeel, $16.99, 208 pages)

4 ounces garlic cloves, peeled

1 tablespoon canola oil

2 tablespoons water

Place garlic in a blender. With motor running, add the oil, then water. Blend to a smooth paste, scraping down the sides often. Transfer to a clean glass jar, cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.