NomEatNom - How to Make Your Own Coconut Butter

Okay, so by now many of you know my recent obsession with raw coconut butter. The thing is, while it’s amazingly delicious and amazingly nutritious, it’s also amazingly expensive.

So, what’s a girl to do?

Why, make her own, of course! 🙂

I’ve spent the past few weeks experimenting with several methods of making my own coconut butter. Many of the methods gave me the desired finished product (i.e. smooth, nommy coconut butter), but some were much more of a headache than others.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

My blender just can’t cut it. I end up with some grainy coconut at the bottom of the blender and untouched coconut on the top. Now, if you are fortunate enough to own a super amazing MONSTER blender (e.g. Vitamix), you should do just fine.

UPDATE! (5/20/12) For those who don’t have a food processor, I did find a way to make it work with just a blender! **Applause!!** This happened out of sheer desperation when my food processing attachment bit the dust. The key is to start with your coconut oil (about 3 T) and a small amount of shredded coconut (around 1/2 cup). Blend this together, while slowly increasing the speed, until liquefied. Then, add more coconut a bit at at time and continue to blend until liquefied. Stir the mixture as needed in order to get the ingredients from the top to the bottom. You also can add a bit more oil if your butter isn’t as smooth as you’d like. As long as you add a scoop or two of coconut at a time, your blender won’t get overwhelmed. In fact, I found that I was able to make an even BIGGER batch with my blender, than with my food processor! This means even more coconut butter to feed my addiction! Yayyyyy!!! 🙂

As much as I love my Cuisinart Smart Stick Chopper, much like the blender, this is simply too big of a job for it. All I ended up with was grainy coconut.

While speaking of the Cuisinart, do not use an immersion blender. Unless a coconut bespeckled kitchen is the look you’re going for, that is. (I was doubtful that this would work to begin with, but I wanted to try to be sure…and to report back to you, of course!)

Attaching a mason jar to your blender (à la 1950s housewife) works wonderfully…at first. However, this method is pretty taxing on your blender, and it may start to overheat. Also, the jar gets REALLY hot…one of my batches even came out with a bit of a metallic aftertaste…ewwww.

Have no fear, though, I did find a method that is not only super easy, but will also give you super smooth, delicious coconut butter each and every time!

Homemade Coconut Butter

Ingredients:

Unsweetened dried coconut flakes
Virgin coconut oil (If you have a super powerful blender or processor, you may not even need this!)

Seriously, that’s it!

I know!!!

Simply add about two cups of coconut flakes to your food processor. Be careful not to overload your processor. (You don’t need anything super expensive or fancy. I simply used the processor attachment on my 12-speed Oster.)

I like to start on low and then slowly increase the blending speed up to the “liquefy” setting. Blend until the coconut reaches a grainy/meal consistency.

Add a tablespoon or two of melted coconut oil. (At this point, if you feel your processor can handle it, you can add a few more scoops of coconut flakes if you’d like to make a larger batch.) Continue to blend until a smooth butter forms. (If your butter still isn’t as smooth as you’d like, just add a bit more oil.)

This whole process could take up to 15 minutes, depending on the power of your processor…but, oh baby, is it worth it!

Now, if you’re an experimental chef like me, there are endless variations you can try with your coconut butter.

Here are just a few:

Add a few teaspoons of cinnamon and/or pure vanilla extract
Add a bit of raw honey or pure maple syrup
Process with mashed banana and vanilla extract for a nommy icing (or chill it to make vanilla fudge!)
Process with mashed pumpkin, vanilla extract, and pumpkin pie spice.
Mix with a bit of your favorite nut butter (almond, peanut, cashew!)
Melt dark chocolate and mix it in…om nom nom nom nom!!!

However, I would recommend trying at least one batch simply plain, so you can enjoy its innate nomminess all on its own. As much as I love trying all sorts of different flavors for creating icings, spreads, etc., pure coconut butter is still my favorite! You really don’t need anything else, just nom it right off the spoon!