How To: Coconut Butter + Coconutty-Pineapple Oat Bars

This week felt like Spring. The snow is melting, the sun is out, the temperatures are warming and a wave of I-must-clean-and-dejunk my house came. I cleaned out and organized my closet last night and I'm feeling like a new woman! Hopefully there are signs of Spring wherever you may be and that you have some fun plans for the weekend. Before I split, I wanted to share with you how to make coconut butter. All you need is unsweetened shredded coconut and a food processor (I suppose you could also use a high powered blender). Here is how ya do it:

Throw the unsweetened shredded coconut in your food processor and power it up. I put in about 2 cups shredded coconut and it took about 8 minutes to turn the shredded coconut into butter (the more shredded coconut you put in, the more time it will take).

This was 5ish minutes in and it is getting close! Feel free to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula if you feel like it.

Couple minutes more and you have this dreamy concoction. Now what do we do with it?

I used mine and whipped up a pineapple-coconutty oat bar concoction (in the same family as a granola bar). I'm sharing the recipe below if you're interested. You can also use it to top pancakes, muffins, waffles, etc. I'm excited to experiment with it in my baking. The coconut butter will set up and solidify at room temperature so if you want to bring it back to a liquid consistency- heat it up in the microwave for a few seconds. If you use coconut butter, I'd love to hear your ideas so leave a comment!

Here is my Pineapple-Coconutty Oat Bars (is this what I should be calling them?), keep in mind that I didn't measure anything, I just sorta eyeballed, tasted as I went, and added things until the mixture reached the right consistency. Enjoy:

Recipe (yields 10 bars from a 9 in square pan):

2 1/2 ish cups oats

1/2 cup almonds, roughly chopped

3/4 cup chopped dried pineapple (I think mangos or any other dried tropical fruit would also be good)

2 cups unsweetened coconut made into coconut butter (two cups unsweetened coconut will make around 3/4 cup-1 cup coconut butter)

1-2 tablespoons honey (or agave)

1/2 ish cup hot water

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl combine oats, almonds, dried pineapple, coconut butter and honey. Wash your hands and mix ingredients by hand. When everything is combined, give it a taste and add more honey if it needs more sweetening. Add hot water until the mixture reaches a good sticky consistency. Turn mixture into a parchment lined 9in square pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle and press toasted coconut evenly over the top. Bake anywhere from 15-20 minutes. You want the bars to firm up nicely. Remove and cool completely before cutting into bars. Store in an airtight container. *I thought they tasted better the next day. 

Thanks for stopping in and I'll see you next week! xoxo

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