Trader Joe's Coconut Cream

This is Day Six of Coconut Week. 


I spotted this can in the store and bought it on a whim, knowing that I needed a bit more material to fill up this second Coconut Week. But I really had no idea what I would do with it.

Then I bought a Trader Joe's Key Lime Pie (review pending), and thought that maybe coconut cream would work as a topping for that. In my imagination, it would be kind of like a coconutty Cool Whip.

Well, it is and it isn't. It does have roughly the same consistency, at least at room temperature. (Refrigerated, it gets too stiff to work with easily.) And it is definitely coconutty. But it is not sweet. It's just coconut milk with some thickeners. It did not work well as a pie topping, even though in theory lime and coconut should make excellent partners (as Harry Nilsson taught us).

I looked online for ideas of what to do with it. Pinterest had a collection of recipes using this product, but I couldn't access them because I didn't have a Pinterest account and didn't feel like setting one up.

Then, by happy coincidence, just as I was wondering what else I could do with the 95% of the can that I had left over after the failed pie experiment, this photo and comment popped up under the #TraderJoes hashtag on Twitter, cross-posted from Instagram:

I asked her on Twitter what she did with all of that coconut cream. No response. But as you can see, somebody on Instagram asked the same thing, and her only answer is that she adds it to her coffee.

I ended up dumping what was left in my can down the drain. It's not that I dislike it; I just can't find a role for it in the foods I prepare and eat.


Will I buy it again? 

Not unless I learn of something fabulous that I'd like to make using it.