Ahhh coconut butter … what could be yummier? Sadly, coconut butter, also known as coconut manna, is not cheap to buy. You can make your own coconut butter yourself though, which is really just very finely ground up coconut flesh, with this quick and easy “how to”.
Looking for recipes that use this delectable treat? See: stuffing dates with coconut butter at heart beet kitchen and also see my recipes for carob avocado mousse and unsweetened carob mousse and coconut date squares.
Saving money
Oh, my favorite topic yet again. I didn’t realize until starting this blog just how focused I am on saving money. Hah, no wonder I sometimes drive my husband crazy.
I’m not sure, but I think that this AIP coconut butter might be right up there in the savings department with my AIP cassava flour .
This recipe makes a bit more than 1/2 cup of AIP coconut butter from 2 cups of shredded coconut and costs less than 1/3 as much as buying the store bought stuff.
Making AIP coconut butter
I once tried to make a larger quantity of coconut butter all at one go (maybe 6 cups of coconut?) but it took a long time to get to the melted coconut butter stage and the butter started to turn a light caramel shade because I had “cooked” it slightly.
Don’t do what I did … I would stick with processing 2 cups of coconut at a time. The blender needs a bit of babysitting (coconut sitting?) in order to get the coconut to morph into coconut butter. After you put the coconut in the high speed blender and blend on medium for a minute or two you will see that you need to turn off the blender and scrape the sides down as well as moving some of the coconut that has settled around and under the blades. With a medium shred coconut I repeated this process over and over until the coconut looked a bit like the pea sized stage in making pastry dough. If you’ve made pastry you will know what I am talking about.
Update: I recently bought fine shred coconut and it works much better when making coconut butter. Less than 5 minutes and I had a wonderful runny butter.
That gives me an idea … I wonder if you could make a decent pie crust with cassava flour and lard ? Hmmm.
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Yields 1/2 cup
AIP coconut butter is great to have on hand in your pantry but will need to be softened prior to using in those many recipes that call for it.
5 minPrep Time
5 minTotal Time
Save RecipeIngredients
2 cups shredded unsweetened coconut (a fine shred works best(
Method
Put the coconut in a high speed blender and process at a medium speed for 1-2 minutes,
Then turn the blender off and lift some of the coconut from under the blades.
Turn to high and process for 2-3 minutes or so and you should have smooth, runny coconut butter.
When the butter is smooth and runny, pour it into a jar and store at room temperature.
Notes
Don't process on high for a prolonged period of time or the coconut butter will turn a light shade of caramel because you will have "cooked" it.
This can be stored in your pantry since it doesn't require refrigeration.
Will need to be softened before using in a recipe.
I have made coconut butter from the same bag of bulk fine shred coconut: sometimes it has taken 5 minutes and sometimes 30 minutes. I can't figure it out!! [br} Update: using a Vitamix I found that setting the speed at 5 the coconut will soften more quickly than starting on high.
If you have other recipes that use coconut butter I would LOVE to hear about them. Comment or email me at margaret@foodtohealourselves.com
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