If you have ever shopped Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, you have probably seen Coconut Butter.  Of course, those of us in dinky towns that do not have a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s can either order online or do without.  Well,  I decided I didn’t want to do without anymore, and I was so not ready to fork out $13 for a jar plus shipping.  I had seen a lot of blogs where people made their own, so I thought I would give it a whirl.  And so the adventure began.

Ingredients:

Easy enough.  Note – *do not*, repeat *do not*, use sweetened coconut flakes.  They will never make butter as they are too soft and moist.  We have a small store that sells unsweetened coconut, and it is actually quite inexpensive.  Or, I order it from Atlantic Spice (sister company  on the west coast is SF Herb Co) when I am ordering my hugejass bags of cinnamon 😀

I measured out 8 oz of coconut and put it into my mini processor.  This was mistake #1, as it was too much for my tiny processor.

It was happily whirring away, and I knew it would likely take 15-20 minutes, so I waited.  It became fine and almost looked like it was going to ‘butter up,’ but then it kept getting stuck.  I did not want to overload the processor, so I thought the blender would work.

Transfer to blender = losing about 1.5 ounces on the counter and floor.  Sigh.

I turned on the blender and it started to blend, then got stuck and unstuck.  Then I smelled burned rubber.  😯   Okay, time to evacuate!

I took it back over to the processor and decided to batch it.  And voila!  That started to work.  It was getting creamy, and I kept adding more in.  You will need to stop and push the coconut down periodically.

Once I was done with the whole shebang, 30 minutes had elapsed.

The result?

Nice! It is not a totally smooth texture, but the coconut flavor is ah-mazing.  It almost tasted sweet, too!

What to do with this stuff?

Or, you could put it on oatmeal or on toast or even on something like chicken or fish!

Note this will become solid at room temperature (depending on how cold your house is).  Just heat it up for about a minute in the microwave or scrape out what you want and let it melt.  The fat from coconut oil is a medium chain fatty acid and actually quite good for you, unlike what the CSPI says.

My tips for making this would be:

1. Don’t use the coconut straight from the fridge.  Let it come to room temperature so it won’t take so long.

2.  Start the blending in small batches.  This was tougher than even almond butter, for some reason.

3.  Most important – Be patient.  It can take up to 1/2 hour to do this.

Homemade Cacao Bliss:

Following my own tips above, I made another batch.

This time with cocoa powder and honey.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz of unsweetened dried coconut
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

This batch I was smart and processed a couple ounces at a time.  This does take a while.  I would say about 30 minutes of processing, stopping and pushing the coconut down periodically, so plan ahead if you want to make this.  Maybe it would be different in a super duper processor and not my little mini.  Someone needs to let me know 😀

After the coconut has ‘buttered’ – add in the cocoa powder:

Put the lid on and process.  You could just leave it at this point if you want.  I drizzled in a tbsp of honey:

This seized it up a little bit, so I added about 2 tablespoons of coconut oil to help smooth it out.  Not sure why the honey did that, but I find that happens with nut butter as well.

Kind of like a melted Mounds Bar.  Yes  it is.  Approved by John!  I think you can be safe to use the nutritionals for Artisana coconut butter for this, which is 92 calories per tablespoon.

Enjoy!