Beautiful Coconut Flour
May 23, 2018
Made from the flesh of coconuts themselves, coconut flour is a natural by-product from making cold-pressed oil . When the oil is pressed from coconuts, the coconut meat leftover can then be dried and ground, producing a fine powder suitable for baking: the coconut flour you know and love!
Low-carb and naturally gluten free, coconut flour is a great alternative to traditional flours. It's also full of natural goodness in the forms of protein, fibre and as a source of manganese. The flavour of the coconut flour in cooking and baking is subtle and you don’t need a lot of coconut flour, you need just a fraction of the amount of regular flour, it goes a long way when teamed with enough eggs and liquid to achieve the perfect consistency!
Coconut flour is very dry and absorbent, so it requires a much higher liquid ratio than most flours . This means it can’t be substituted for wheat or grain-based flours at a 1:1 ratio. Some general tips to keep in mind when creating or converting recipes:
1. Use a specific coconut flour recipe - this way you can know that the flour to liquid ratio is tried and tested. We've got loads of recipes here .
2. As a rough rule of thumb, each ounce (28g) of coconut flour requires 1 egg. So if you want to convert your regular recipe to one with coconut flour, you need to make sure you have an egg for every ounce of flour used. For example, if your original recipe needed 10ounces of regular flour and 6 eggs, you need to convert this to 10ounces of coconut flour and 10 eggs (four additional eggs). Also, for recipes with liquids (e.g. water, honey, syrup) try adding double the amount.
Coconut flour tends to behave differently from recipe to recipe, so if you do decide to go with your usual recipe, it may just take some experimentation - remember to have fun with it! There are lots of fantastic coconut flour recipes here