Over the past few years, whipped coconut cream has become one of my favorite tricks I’ve come up with in the kitchen. I love whipping up (literally) a batch for dinner guests, not even bothering to tell them it isn’t heavy whipped cream. I love how amazed people are when I tell them that it’s totally vegan and just 3 simple ingredients. I have shared how to make this glorious stuff within several of my recipe posts before, but I thought what better way to kick off my new Tutorial Tuesdays series than with this favorite how-to!

Plus, since canned coconut milks can vary drastically, I wanted to give you my comparison of 5 different coconut milk brands. You’ll be shocked at how different each one is. Because of the vary degrees of whipability (is that a word?) – the results and the work can be quite challenging if you choose incorrrectly. Due to the different stabilizers in each brand and sometimes even where the coconuts originate from, these can cause the much needed separation of the coconut cream from the water to just not work – no matter what you do.

Outside of the varying brands, I have also read that extra air in the can, may also cause less separation to occur. This isn’t something I have tested too much myself, but if you want to shake cans of coconut milk at the store, I say go for it. You are listening for little to no swishing around of the liquid in the can.

Whipped coconut milk is creamy, rich and thick, much like traditional whipped cream and the coconut flavor is very faintly there. Not nearly what you would expect it to be. The best part about homemade whipped coconut cream is all of it’s many uses and how much you can vary the flavor. You can add raw cacao powder for a chocolate cream, muddle some fruit and fold that in, maybe a squeeze or two of your favorite citrus, or even just a good quality all natural extract, you can even add a bit of your favorite liqueur. It would be hard to choose my favorite way to customize my homemade whipped coconut cream, but the easy part is actually making it. So, let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »