Coconut buttah!
Hello my friends in search of awesome edibles! I’ve got a quick lil’ post here for you on one of my fave raw edibles, coconut butter. Pronounce it how ya like, this stuff is awesome! Coconuts in general are loaded with antimicrobial and antifungal properties in their saturated fatty acids, they have a good amount of lauric acids that help to raise our HDL (good cholesterol levels) and when combined with other raw goodies they can increase the absorbability and usefulness of their fat soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids! The medium chain fatty acids in coconut are also believed to be beneficial to the thyroid and encourage proper metabolism. On top of all this healthy goodness, coconut tastes awesome! My coconutty weapon of choice is coconut buttah! Er. Coconut Butter. Coconut butter is the ground flesh of the coconut with the oil intact. This creamy goodness is an incredible add in for smoothies, as a thickener in raw frosting, and makes a tasty dip for fruit when warmed to dip’able consistency.
Coconut butter is such awesome stuff that I thought I’d give making it at home a shot! Now this is one recipe I’m sharing that you absolutely need a high powder blender for. There are also juicers out there that may be able to create this as well with their homogenizing function. All you need is some good quality dehydrated shredded coconut or coconut flakes (preferably organic and unsweetened for optimum healthy goodness). I simply ground about 6 cups of coconut flakes in my Vita Mix, using the tamper to keep everything in contact with the blades and ground it for about 2 minutes. Voila! Coconut butter!
Now different sources of shredded coconut may have less oil content, so if your blend looks like it needs a lil’ moisture, you can solve that by adding a lil’ coconut oil. If you don’t have a high power blender, there are many good sources of coconut butter out there. My current fave is Artisana’s, great stuff! Well worth the cost as a lil’ goes a long way in smoothies! A 16oz jar usually lasts a month in our house with multiple daily uses!
Happy experimenting! ~ Rory :0)
Hey rory I love this stuff too! Never made my own though. I have heard you can make this in a food processor in case any readers are without HS blender.
July 14, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Nice!! I’ll have to give it a go round in the food processor myself! Would be cool to be able to rock out a vid on that in the future! Rock on Bitt! Much love ~ Rory :0)
July 14, 2011 at 5:55 pm
I love coconut oil but I am wondering what you use coconut butter for? Are the health benefits different or is having the butter a taste preference?
July 24, 2011 at 4:34 am
Hey Wendi! I use coconut butter as an add-in for my smoothies, to make a quick blended coconut mylk and to to flavor and thicken raw cake frosting. In my opinion coconut butter has more nutritional value than coconut oil alone, as it is more of whole food. When we refine coconuts to extract the oil, we lose a lot of good stuff in the process. Just in the same ways that you would get more vitamins, minerals and protein from eating olives than using olive oil. With coconut butter, the fibers and nutrients that may be bound to them are blended into the mix, so you get all that goodness with the oil as well! Check out these links to Self Nutrition Data for the down-low. The first one is for coconut oil and the second link is for Artisana Coconut butter. Check out the differences in protein, fiber and vitamin content.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fats-and-oils/508/2
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/custom/627740/2
Peace and tasty eats Wendi! ~ Rory :0)
July 24, 2011 at 3:01 pm
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Wonderful, I was actually just having this dilemma with making Raw smoothies calling for coconut and not wanting to use to much of my oil. (That stuff is expensive) I have a huge bag of organic, unsweetened coconut and was thinking w.t.heck am I going to do with all that coconut. Now I know, what to do, and use some coco butter for my RFV mango banana ice-cream w/carob coconut sauce. Yumm!. Thanks again.
August 6, 2011 at 10:29 am