Homemade Coconut Butter

Have you ever heard of coconut butter? Essentially you take shredded coconut and puree it until creamy. You can use it as a condiment for anything you want to taste like coconut. You can put it on oatmeal, spread on a baked sweet potato with a dash of cinnamon, on muffins, pancakes, cornbread, etc... The uses are endless. I am a coconut lover, and so this stuff is practically gold :).

I have never bought it from the store because of the high price tag. The cheapest I've seen it was $11.99 for a 16 oz. jar. That being the case, I can't tell you how the taste of my homemade stuff compares to store bought coconut butter. I can tell mine is a little gritty, but that doesn't really bother me. Also, after knowing how much I can save by making it at home, I will never look back.

To figure out savings I found that the cheapest store bought coconut butter is $11.99 for 16 oz. According to my measurements I can get 16 oz. of homemade coconut butter from 6 cups of shredded coconut. Then I found a site where I can buy 1 gallon/3.5 lbs. of shredded unsweetened coconut for $16.99. So, 16 oz. of homemade coconut butter would cost $4.85. That is a whopping savings of $7.14.

If you want to try it, here are some pictures to walk you through the process. All you need is a food processor, some unsweetened shredded coconut and a little patience. Oh and a spatula would be good for the necessary side 'scrapage'.

I poured 2 cups of coconut in the the food processor and let it blend for about 3 minutes. 

Eventually it will start to clump up a bit and you will need to take off the lid and scrape down the sides. Let blend for another minute or two.

At this point it is almost to the creamy stage and you will need to scrape down the sides pretty often.  Be patient and just keep scraping and blending and eventually it will look smooth and creamy.

After it gets to this point I let it blend for another 2-3 minutes to get it as smooth as possible. My most recent batch with 2 cups of coconut resulted in a heaping 1/2 cup of butter. Use right away, or store in an airtight container for later. There is no need to put it in the fridge. A cool dark place will be fine, and just like coconut oil it solidifies at room temperature. 

Tomorrow I will tell you how I used my coconut butter :).

This post is a part of Simple Lives Thursday hosted by GNOWFGLINS.