Monkey Butter

    My mom and I decided we were going to try to can as much as we can this year to preserve some of our harvest. We also wanted to try some different recipes to stockpile some food storage and awesome recipes. One of the first we tried was "Monkey Butter". There are numerous recipes for this online, but nearly every blog post and recipe have disclaimers stating that there is a great deal of debate about how safe Monkey Butter is to can.

    We did research and found that the debate comes from the fact that bananas have such low acidity that there is danger of spoilage. However, the pineapple is supposed to counteract that. To be on the safe side, my mom and I also added some citric acid and lemon juice, and we feel pretty confident between that and our research that our monkey butter will be just fine. We made several batches and tweaked it slightly each time based on different things we read. Ultimately, we liked it best with a higher amount of banana than most recipes suggested, because the pineapple is very overpowering. I made some for the freezer and some for canning, but used the same recipe:

    - 6 medium-sized ripe bananas
    - 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple (keep the juice, don't drain it)
    - 1/4 cup coconut (I used unsweetened ground coconut that I got from WinCo's bulk bins)
    - 3 cups white sugar
    - 3 tablespoons of bottled lemon juice
    - 1 tablespoon of powdered citric acid

 

(All ingredients combined in a pot above to begin cooking to a boil)

     I peeled and sliced the bananas and threw everything into a large pot, then brought it to a boil. I then turned it down and let it simmer on lower heat to let it thicken, added it into sterilized jars, and let the ones for the refrigerator cool and the ones for canning go into a boiling bath. We left them in for 15 minutes before taking them out and letting them cool, as well. I've heard that canned Monkey Butter turns pink after a while, but so far that hasn't happened.
 

(What the ingredients look like once they're cooking together)

     One batch made about 12 half-pint jars of monkey butter. I liked it when I tasted it, but I LOVED it after it had settled for a week. Let me know what you guys think!