Friday 24 October 2014

Coconut & Malibu rum cupcakes

I love browsing in our local Beanbag Natural Health shop, discovering unfamiliar brands or less known ranges. My little man loves rice cakes, coated in yogurt, and I often pop in to buy a pack for him. Last week I saw a box of Biona organic coconut flour on the shelf of gluten-free products, and as we all love coconut-flavoured cakes and bakes, I thought it might be a good idea to try it.
I often use dessicated coconut in baking but it was the first time I cooked with the coconut flour.



Biona organic coconut flour, "made from the finest selected organic coconuts, is a healthy alternative to wheat and other grain flours. Ideal for both sweet and savoury baking... 
If you are planning on using coconut flour as a substitute for traditional flour, make sure to adjust your recipe by adding extra ingredients such as egg, tapioca flour or chia gel. Due to coconut flour being non-glutinous, these additional ingredients are needed to bind the mixture".

Coconut & Malibu rum cupcakes
Ingredients:
3 medium eggs
50g caster sugar
50g coconut flour
1tsp vanilla bean extract
50g butter, melted
3tbsp Malibu rum
2tbsp water
for the frosting:
3tbsp coconut oil
3+ tbsp icing sugar
3tbsp light condensed milk
2tbsp dessicated coconut

Beat the eggs with sugar in a mixing bowl, add the coconut flour and mix well. Add the vanilla, butter, rum and a couple of tablespoons of water to give it a softer consistency, easier to spoon into muffin cases. As you can see from the photo below, the texture is quite dense, and it is completely different from the normal flour.



Bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes (check with a wooden skewer if they're ready).


Mix the coconut oil with the icing sugar, condensed milk and dessicated coconut to make frosting.



Texture-wise, these coconut cupcakes reminded me a bit of Mrs Crimble's macaroons - quite dense and not at all like cupcakes made with the standard flour. I liked the mild coconut flavour and the aroma the flour gave to the baked product, but wasn't that enthusiastic about the texture.
I think next time I am going to use the coconut flour in baking, I will mix it with the normal flour, maybe 1/3 coconut flour to 2/3 normal flour. Or gluten free flour, if I know we have a guest on a gluten free diet.
My guys liked the cupcakes and they have disappeared quickly enough, but I think there is a room for improvement.
Have you tried baking with the coconut flour? What did you think?




5 comments:

  1. wow these beautiful cupcakes :)

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  2. I'd never heard of coconut flour but I love the look of the recipe :)

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    Replies
    1. Neither have I, Cheryl, that's why I had to try it. ;)

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  3. These look lovely and tasty. Must look out for coconut flour, its a new one on me

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