Coconut milk vs coconut cream vs cream of coconut: grams per cup

Coconut products range from 60 grams to over 300 grams per US cup. The four names people mix up most, coconut milk, coconut cream, cream of coconut and creamed coconut, are four different products, and the heaviest of them is the sweetened one.

All weights are for a US cup of 236.5882365 ml; a tablespoon is a sixteenth of it. A range means the sources disagree by more than this site’s tolerance for that kind of ingredient, so no single figure is chosen. King Arthur’s figure is shown where this site records one, with the verdict on it. Each ingredient’s own page has every source and the full reasoning.

Fat lowers density and sugar raises it. Coconut fat is lighter than water: liquid coconut oil weighs 218 grams per cup (USDA, at the ceiling of the Codex standard CXS 210-1999). So unsweetened canned coconut milk, 226 to 241 grams per cup, and canned coconut cream, 224 to 240 grams, both weigh close to a cup of water or a little under it. Cream of coconut, the sweetened cocktail product sold by Coco Lopez and Goya, is a heavy syrup of coconut fat and sugar and weighs 283 to 312 grams. Sweetened condensed coconut milk, the dairy-free stand-in for condensed milk, sits in the same weight class at 288 to 304 grams per cup: brands with more sugar weigh more, brands with more coconut fat less.

King Arthur's chart gives 284 grams per cup for coconut cream. That implies a density of 1.20 grams per millilitre, which is impossible for an unsweetened emulsion of coconut fat and water. It is the right figure for cream of coconut, where King Arthur's same 284 grams is accepted and Goya's label gives 283, so this site rejects it for coconut cream only. A recipe that says coconut cream usually means the unsweetened can in a modern dessert and the sweetened one in an old-school piña colada; swapping them adds a lot of sugar and about a quarter more weight per cup.

Creamed coconut, also sold as coconut butter or coconut manna, is whole dried coconut ground to a paste, 60 to 68 percent fat plus fibre. It spoons in at 224 to 256 grams per cup, like a nut butter, and sets solid below about 24 °C. Coconut oil changes state at the same temperature, so measure it melted; this site's figure is for the liquid oil.

The dry products depend on how their particles pack. Coconut flour, ground from dried coconut after the oil has been extracted, weighs 116 to 128 grams per cup depending on the grind. Coconut sugar weighs 132 to 154 grams depending on granule size and moisture. Coconut milk powder, coconut milk dried onto a maltodextrin carrier, weighs 96 to 144 grams per cup depending on the brand, light for a powder because it is nearly two thirds fat. Dried coconut itself runs from 60 to 93 grams per cup by cut: large unsweetened flakes stack loosely at 60 grams (Bob's Red Mill, Thrive Market and King Arthur agree), medium unsweetened shreds weigh 80 grams on every label that gives a volume, finely desiccated coconut packs at 85 grams, and sweetened shredded coconut weighs 93 grams in USDA's measurement, because the sugar coating fills the gaps between the fibres. King Arthur's 53 grams for unsweetened shredded coconut is a third below every shredded coconut label and lighter than its own large flakes, and this site rejects it.

Coconut water, the clear liquid from inside a young coconut, is the lightest of the liquids: about 95 percent water with a little sugar and potassium, it weighs 240 grams a cup, only 2 percent more than water. It is not coconut milk, which is pressed from the grated flesh and carries the fat.