Why does peanutbutter become dry when mixed with orange zest and juice?
Last night I mixed some peanut butter (consisting only of peanut and peanut oil) with some orange zest and raisins. After adding the orange zest the peanut butter became too dry to my liking so I gave the orange a good squeeze. Much to my surprise the peanut butter became even dryer!
I tried searching this online but failed, I presume because I don't have the slightest clue which attributes of the peanut butter and the orange are at play here.
Why does peanut butter become dry when mixed with orange?
PS Adding a couple of tbs's of extra oil fixed it and thankfully the raisins caused no extra surprises. I have some yummy but slightly dry peanut butter in the cupboard.
Best Answer
Peanut butter is a suspension of ground peanuts meal in oil. Adding water (juice is a water based solution...) to that would cause a phase separation of the oil and water. I suspect that during this process, the oil will generate a bunch of fine droplets that can no longer hold the peanut meal in suspension, and result in it crashing out and becoming a dry mass.
One way to prevent this would be to stir small amounts of the water into the oil to create an emulsion. This is similar to the process for making mayonnaise, where the emulsion is between oil/egg yolk and an acidic water based solution, often vinegar or lemon juice.
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