Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Homemade coconut Milk

Coconut Milk with Fresh Coconuts

Ingredients
2 coconut large coconuts
6-8 cups filtered water (room temp works best)

Equipment
Food Processor or Blender (may need both!)
Nut Milk Bag, Muslin Bag, or Several Layers of Cheese Cloth

Crack coconuts, reserve coconut water. remove flesh and use vegetable pealer to remove any brown husk attached to the flesh. I do not have a fancy blender or food processor, if you do then you can skip the next couple steps. I brake the coconut flesh with my hands to pieces about 1in by 1 in, then drop the pieces one at a time into my food processors chute while the blades are running, I do one coconut and empty the food processors bowl and then do the other. Once all the coconut is shredded I add about 3 cups of the flesh to my blender and an equal amount of water and blend. If it wont blend try adding more water, just enough that it begins to swirl and blend. Then I let is blend for at least 2 minutes. Then I pour into a muslin bag and squeeze as much milk out of the pulp as I can. I repeat batches of water and flesh in the blender and straining until all the flesh is used. I usually glean about 1 1/2- 2 qrts of coconut milk


Coconut Milk with Unsweetened Dessicated (shredded) Coconut- RAW

Ingredients
2 cups Unsweetened Dessicated Coconut
4 cups filtered water (room temp works best)

Equipment
Blender
Nut Milk Bag, Muslin Bag, or Several Layers of Cheese Cloth

Combine coconut milk and water, let sit overnight. Blend mixture in blender for several minutes. Strain through muslin bag and squeeze out as much milk as possible from the pulp. Add water to make 4 cups (1 qrt)

Coconut Milk with Unsweetened Dessicated (shredded) Coconut- Not Raw

Ingredients
2 cups Unsweetened Dessicated Coconut
4 cups HOT water

Equipment
Blender
Nut Milk Bag, Muslin Bag, or Several Layers of Cheese Cloth
Bring water almost to a boil, but NOT boiling. Combine hot water with coconut, cover with a lid, and let sit for at least 2 hours. After the coconut has soaked for at least 2 hours, blend in blender for a couple minutes and strain, getting out as much of the coconut milk as possible. Add water to make 4 cups (1 qrt)

Drying the Coconut Milk Pulp
Place coconut on a cookie sheet and place in a WARM oven (temp set to 150F or less) and dry for 12-24 hrs, or until dry. Grinding this coconut will NOT result in coconut flour. It resembles shredded coconut. I do not grind the dried pulp and I use it in place of shredded coconut in recipes.

Flavoring Coconut Milk

For 1 qtr of Coconut Milk

Vanilla
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1-2 Tbs honey or maple syrup (optional)
OR
Chocolate
4 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
1tsp cinnamon
1-2 Tbs honey or maple syrup (optional)

After I finish straining the coconut milk through the muslin bag I rinse the blender and pour the strained milk back into the blender and add the ingredients for vanilla or chocolate and blend. If you use honey to sweeten remember that the milk will only be good for 2-3 days, after that the honey with cause the coconut milk to start fermenting.