I use coconut milk fairly regularly as a substitute for heavy cream. I also absolutely LOVE Serious Eats’ Toasted Cream recipe and I got to thinking…
Could you toast canned coconut milk? Removed from the can, obviously. I don’t super understand the chemistry of the differences between heavy cream and coconut milk, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work…? Am I on the wrong track here?
The recipe in question: [https://www.seriouseats.com/toasted-cream](https://www.seriouseats.com/toasted-cream)
by kakoopman
5 Comments
Reading the recipe, the science behind it involves exposing proteins and sugars to low heat. Coconut cream has both, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’d give it a try!
Edit: not as much protein as I thought. It actually contains very little. Hm. Maybe it wouldn’t work the same.
On second thought, I’ve had sweetened condensed coconut milk, and that was very toasty, just like the dairy version!
A can of coconut milk is under $2 at Trader Joe’s in say go for it. Might be awesome but if it’s not whatever it’s $2 and probably not actually bad either
Not sure if this would work, but maybe skim the cream out of the can of coconut milk, toast that and then blend back in the rest of the milk. Thinking I am having is if the milk isn’t otherwise going to do what you’re after, this could give some of the flavor you are after and by mixing back in the rest from the can you’re still getting everything that was in the can.
I think coconut milk will tend to separate given a certain amount of heating, due to the denaturing of proteins. Could try lower heat for a longer time, but you will still need to hit a certain temperature to get Maillard or caramelization reactions. I agree with the other comment that suggested separating the cream portion first, trying to toast that, then recombine with the water portion.