What Is Coconut Butter, and How Do You Use It?
Not to be confused with coconut oil — coconut butter is a different product entirely, and knowing the difference is the key to using it properly.
What's actually in coconut butter?
Coconut oil is pressed from coconut flesh — only the fat is extracted, nothing else. Coconut butter is made by grinding the entire coconut meat into a paste, fibre and all, similar to how peanut butter is ground peanuts rather than just peanut oil. That's why coconut butter is thicker, more textured, and nutritionally different — it retains the fibre that pure oil doesn't have.
Why is it solid at room temperature?
This trips a lot of people up the first time: coconut butter sets completely solid below room temperature, and it's meant to. That's not a sign it's gone off or been mishandled — it's simply how the natural fats in ground coconut behave once they cool. If your jar looks like a solid block rather than something spreadable, that's normal, not a fault.
How do you use solid coconut butter?
Place the jar in a bowl of warm water for 10-15 minutes — a bain-marie, essentially — and it will soften back to a spoonable, pourable consistency. Stir well before use, since the oil and coconut solids can separate slightly as it warms. You can repeat this warming process as many times as needed without any loss of quality; it will simply set solid again once it cools.
What do you actually do with it once it's warm?
- Drizzle it over porridge, pancakes, or fruit, the way you would a nut butter or syrup
- Stir into curries or soups for a rounder, richer coconut flavour with more body than milk or cream
- Use straight off the spoon as a quick, energy-dense snack
- Blend into smoothies for natural thickness and coconut flavour
Can you bake with it?
Yes — warmed coconut butter works in baking similarly to how you'd use a nut butter, though it behaves differently to coconut oil in a recipe, since it's thicker and contains the coconut fibre. It's better suited to recipes designed around coconut butter specifically rather than as a direct oil substitute.
Is coconut butter the same as creamed coconut?
They're closely related — both are ground whole coconut meat — though branding and exact processing can vary between products labelled one way or the other. If a recipe calls for creamed coconut, coconut butter is generally a safe substitute.
Cocofina's Coconut Butter
Ours is 100% ground organic coconut — the whole meat, nothing removed, nothing added. No stabilisers to keep it artificially soft at room temperature, which is exactly why it sets solid the way real coconut butter should.
