Coconut Cream
Coconut cream is the thick, rich portion separated from coconut milk, offering a dense tropical sweetness and body without any dairy. It is much thicker than coconut milk and needs stirring or shaking before use. It is the defining texture behind many tropical, blended cocktails.
Common uses
- base for blended tropical cocktails
- adds body to shaken rum drinks
Buying & storage
A few days: Separates and sours quickly once the tin is open. Decant what is left rather than leaving it in the tin.
Buying: Read the tin carefully: 'coconut cream', 'coconut milk' and 'cream of coconut' are three different products and only one of them is sweetened. Shake before opening — separation is normal, not spoilage.
Storage: refrigerate after opening and use within a few days; stir well before using, as it separates
In depth
Understanding coconut cream
How it is made, where it comes from, what it pairs with, and how it behaves in an alcohol-free drink.
How it's made
Worth being precise, because three products share the name. Coconut cream is the thick, unsweetened extraction from coconut flesh. Coconut milk is the same thing diluted. Cream of coconut is coconut cream with a large amount of added sugar, and it is what Piña Colada recipes mean. Substituting one for another is the single most common way these drinks go wrong.
Origin
A staple of Southeast Asian and Caribbean cooking long before its cocktail use; the sweetened cream-of-coconut product is a mid-twentieth-century commercial invention tied directly to the Piña Colada.
What it pairs with
Pineapple, rum, lime, nutmeg and coffee. Its fat rounds off sharp edges, so a coconut drink almost always needs more acid than it looks like it should.
In alcohol-free drinks
- Body and richness with no dairy — the main way to give an alcohol-free drink real weight
- Unsweetened coconut cream plus a controlled amount of syrup usually beats cream of coconut, because it puts the sweetness under your control
Before it goes
Use up coconut cream
Ranked by how much of it each drink uses and how little else it needs — the ones at the top will not send you back to the shop.
- Virgin Piña Colada
Uses 60ml. Also needs pineapple juice, double cream.
- Chi-Chi
Uses 40ml. Also needs vodka, pineapple juice.
- Piña Colada
Uses 30ml. Also needs white rum, pineapple juice.
- Bahama Mama
Uses 20ml. Also needs dark rum, gold rum, pineapple juice, orange juice, fresh lime juice, grenadine.
Recipes
Cocktails containing this ingredient
Stand-in
Where coconut cream is a recommended substitute
Recipes that name it as a swap for something else, with what it replaces.
- White Russianin place of fresh cream
- Ramos Gin Fizzin place of cream
- Painkillerin place of cream of coconut
- Blue Hawaiianin place of cream of coconut
- Brandy Alexanderin place of double cream
- Grasshopperin place of cream
- Golden Cadillacin place of cream
- Virgin Painkillerin place of cream of coconut
Swap it
Possible substitutions
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