Coconut flour, known for its high fiber content and natural sweetness, can be a tricky ingredient to work with, but when used correctly, results in delicious baked goods.  This pound cake is rich, buttery and decadent.  Using part coconut flour adds a hint of delicious coconut flavor, which pairs perfectly with a tart citrus glaze made with seasonal Meyer lemon juice.  Enjoy!

Coconut Pound Cake with Meyer Lemon Glaze

Yields One 9-Inch Loaf Cake

Editor’s Note: Laura did this recipe in weight measurements. If you’re not sure how to convert this to household measurements, there are several handy websites for making these conversions, such as this one: http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/flour_volume_weight.html

Ingredients:

• 6 ounces soft Butter
• 12 ounces Granulated Sugar
• 4 whole Eggs
• 4 ounces Whole Milk
• 8 ounces All-Purpose Flour
• 2 ounces Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• ½ tsp Salt
• ½ tsp Meyer Lemon Zest
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Meyer Lemon Glaze

• ½ cup Powdered Sugar
• Meyer Lemon Juice (substitute with regular lemon juice, if not available)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. 
2. Prepare loaf pan by greasing with butter and lining with parchment paper.  Grease top of parchment paper.
3. In separate bowl, sift together dry ingredients twice.  Set aside.
4. In stand mixer or using hand mixer, cream butter and sugar.
5. At low speed, slowly add in eggs one at a time, allowing them to incorporate between additions.
6. Add vanilla.
7. Add whole milk and sifted flour mixture (3 additions flour, 2 additions milk) – starting and ending with flour mixture.
8. Add lemon zest.
9. Use spatula to incorporate.
10. Place batter in loaf pan and spread evenly on top. Tap pans on counter to remove excess air.  Place on baking sheet.
11. Bake for 1 hour and 10-20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of loaf comes clean.
12. Prepare Glaze:  Whisk together powdered sugar and Meyer lemon juice until you reach the desired consistency.
13. Allow to cool on rack for 5-10 minutes before removing from pan.  Allow to cool (almost completely) before pouring on glaze.

Laura Davidson is the blogger behind Blogging Over Thyme, where she writes daily about her new life as a full-time culinary school student.  In her spare time, Laura loves to develop and experiment with recipes in her small apartment kitchen, often focusing on whole-grain, nutritious, and hearty dishes.   

This fun recipe from Christen of Life:Styled uses our coconut flour and a hint of lime to make shortbread with a little extra zing! We love how she used natural food dyes to make a rainbow of colors and a simple touch with a toothpick or skewer and a light circle press turned these round shortbread cookies into buttons. Life is never boring with Christen. We’re in love with Life:Styled and hope you’ll fall for her too! Of her blog, Christen writes, “Life:Styled is a place to come for weekly menu and recipe inspiration, kids craft ideas, and tons of free downloads for your parties, life, and home.”

Gluten Free Coconut-Lime Shortbread Cookies

• 1-1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Mix
• 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 2 sticks (1 cup) Unsalted Butter, softened
• 1 cup Confectioners’ Sugar
• 1 tsp Lime Zest
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Whisk together the flours and salt in a bowl. With a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, sugar and lime until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low and slowly add the flour mixture until just combined. Adding color with natural food dyes is a fun way to make these cookies pop, so you can mix some in at this point if desired. Divide dough in half. Shape into a disk; wrap in plastic. Chill until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Let dough soften slightly at room temp. Working with one disk at a time, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until 1/2 inch thick. Using round cookie cutter cut out your shape and space onto cookie sheet 1 inch apart.

Bake until edges are pale golden, 16 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool. Can be stored in airtight container up to one week.

I think by now you guys have gotten the gist that I love Bob’s Red Mill and their wonderful products. So, it should be no surprise that I just had to jump into the recipe giveaway and I had 3 items to choose from and I chose Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour as my main ingredient. My family has a really good Coconut Dessert recipe and I wondered how it would turn out using Coconut Flour instead of cake flour so I experimented. I can’t say it came out exactly like our old recipe as far as looks but the taste was still as good but would have been better had I ordered Coconut Flakes instead of Shredded Coconut.

Darned if they did not look the same but when it came and I opened the box, I knew I had goofed!  Coconut Flakes are a lot fluffier and bigger and these were shredded so fine it would be awesome in a cookie recipe but I still decided to go ahead and make our dessert. Now, it really isn’t a cake and even when we make it the regular way it does not hold up like a cake. It is more along the lines of a coconut pudding like cake. It is suppose to fall all over your plate, not sit up like a cake. I wanted to explain that so you understand the pictures I am about to show you.Here is what the recipe is and you can substitute the Shredded Coconut for the flakes and it will look even more awesome!

Coconut Dessert

• 3 cups Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 1 cup White Cake Mix or Cake Flour
• 1 Tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Baking Powder
• 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Powdered Buttermilk
• 2-1/2 cups Water
• 3 Eggs
• 3/4 cup Vegetable Oil
• 2 tsp Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Coconut Sugar (I already had some)
• 1/2 Tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Sea Salt

These tasty brownies are part of our month-long celebration of coconut flour and were developed by Brandi of Branappetit. Brandi Evans is the writer, taste tester, and dish washer at BranAppetit! This blog is my cooking outlet, a place where I can share what’s going on in our kitchen and our lives. A self-taught cook, I try my best to make delicious homemade food, with a healthier spin. Equally fueled by local food, fresh baked bread, and homemade desserts, we eat often and we eat well.

We love Branappetit and think you will too.

Double Chocolate Coconut Brownies

• 1/2 pound Butter (2 sticks)
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• 3 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
• 3 Eggs
• 1.5 Tbsp Instant Espresso
• 1 Tbsp Vanilla
• 1 cup Sugar
• 3/4 cup Coconut Flour
• 1/2 Tbsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1 cup Shredded Coconut

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Melt the butter, a 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate. Let cool.

In a large bowl, mix eggs, coffee, vanilla, and sugar until combined.

Stir in chocolate.

Add in flour, baking powder, salt and stir until all the flour is incorporated.

Fold in the other 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and the shredded coconut.

Spread into a 9×13 pan.

Bake at 350°F for 38-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

These are sweeter than your average muffin but denser than your average cupcake and so moist, you have to wait for them to cool a bit before attempting to remove them from the pan, or else they will fall apart. When I do remove them from the pan, I do so by running a butter knife around the edge of all the cupcake cups (no wrappers for these) and then inverting the pan. All the teacakes (if cool enough) should slip easily from the greased (not floured) cupcake tin, landing squarely on their heads. Which is right where I leave them for glazing. I like the look of these upside down little round-edged pyramids. If you can do gluten, there’s a great recipe for Meyer Lemon Chia Seed Muffins over on Danica’s Daily.

• 2/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill Organic Quinoa (cooked)
• 1/3 cup Soy Milk (you can use dairy or sub other milks if you like)
• 4 large organic Brown Eggs
• 1 tsp pure Vanilla Extract
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup Butter, melted and cooled
• 1 cup Sugar
• 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Almond or Hazelnut Flour
• 3 Tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 2 Tbsp Bob’s Red Mill Chia Seeds
• 1-1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp True Lemon Natural Crystallized Lemon
• 1/2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1/2 tsp Salt

• 1/3 cup Butter
• 2 cups sifted Powdered Sugar
• 3 Tbsp Water
• 1tsp True Lemon Natural Crystallized Lemon
• 1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract

This recipe for Rosemary Goat Cheese Scones comes from Wendy Kirby of the lovely food blog, Le Phemme Phoodie. Wendy Kirby is a lawyer by day and foodie 24/7. Wendy maintains an active law practice while pursuing her passion for food writing and photography on her blog LaPhemmePhoodie.com.  We’ve enjoyed her blog and hope you will too.

CHEWY ROSEMARY GOAT CHEESE SCONES (Gluten-Free and Egg-Free)

These savory scones are best served warm with a dollop of butter and your favorite cup of tea. Editor’s Note: Wendy did this recipe in weight measurements. If you’re not sure how to convert this to household measurements, there are several handy websites for making these conversions, such as this one: http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/flour_volume_weight.html

Ingredients

• 1O ounces Gluten-Free Flour Blend*
• 1.5 ounces Coconut Flour 
• 1 tsp Xanthan Gum
• 1 tsp Kosher Salt
• 4 ounces Unsalted Butter, chilled
• 2 ounces Goat Cheese, chilled and crumbled
• 1 Tbsp dried Rosemary
• 8 ounces Rice Milk, chilled

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a large bowl, whisk together gluten-free flour blend, coconut flour, xanthan gum and salt. Cut in the butter using a pastry knife, fork or if you prefer you can also use your fingers. Continue until the mixture resembles a course cornmeal. You should not have large chunks of butter.

Add the rosemary to the dry ingredients by slowly rubbing it between your fingers to activate the flavor as you break it up over the bowl and onto the dry ingredients. Whisk the rosemary into the dry ingredients until combined. Add the cheese crumbles and toss until the cheese is coated with the dry ingredients.

Slowly pour the rice milk into the bowl. Stir the milk into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Stir until just combined. If the dough is too dry, you can add some rice milk. Coconut flour is one of the more absorbent flours so you may need to add a little milk to create a soft dough to work with.

Roll the dough out onto a floured surface and gently flatten into a circle  approximately 3/4-inch thick. Cut the dough into 8 equal triangles. Gently transfer the cut dough to a greased baking sheet. Make sure to separate the scones so that they have enough room to bake. If using a scone pan, gently shape triangles into prepared pan.

Bake on top rack of oven at 375°F for 25-30 minutes or until scones are light golden brown. Start checking at the 15 minute mark to monitor the color of the scones.

Serve immediately or transfer to a rack to cool. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for approximately 1-2 days.  These scones are best when served immediately.

*Gluten-free flour blend: 11 ounces brown rice flour, 3.75 ounces potato starch and 1.40 ounces tapioca flour. Combine the ingredients and whisk together until combined. Measure out 10 ounces from the combined ingredients.

This fabulous recipe comes from Shari, aka Red, of the blog Tickled Red. When asked to describe herself and her blog, Shari says, “I’m the wife of a competitive surfer with an extreme nature and the mother of two fantastic silly monkeys. Simply a coastal southern girl with a tendency to always look on the bright side. I’ve lived on the east coast for the past 26 years and would not trade it for anything in the world (humidity, mosquitoes and all). I believe in trying to stay optimistic as well as looking for the fun in life, even when faced with adversity. So Tickled Red will be a place to show case all of the little things that make me smile, say thank you and breathe just a little easier.”

Coconut Dutch Baby with Kahlua Bananas

Makes approx. 4 servings
Prep Time-Approx. 15 minutes (including chill time)
Cook Time-Approx. 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 large Eggs
• 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 1 cup Milk
• 1/4-1/2 cup Coconut Milk, use to help thin batter
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 3 Tbsp Unsalted Butter, melted
• 3 Tbsp Butter
• 1/3 cup Light Brown Sugar
• 1/8 tsp Cinnamon
• 1/4 cup Kahlua
• 3  Bananas; sliced
• 1/2 cup shredded Coconut, pre-toasted

For Coconut Dutch Baby-

Place an 8- or 10- inch iron skillet in the freezer for approx. 10 minutes. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Combine the eggs, flour, salt and milk in a blender. Blend at low speed 1 minute or until well combined. {Or whisk in a bowl as I did} You want the consistency of pancake batter. If your batter seems too thick add coconut milk until you reach the desired thickness.

Pour melted butter in chilled skillet and swirl to coat. Pour in batter and bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F and bake 10 minutes longer or until golden brown and a fork comes out fairly clean.

*Note-If you haven’t had a dutch baby before it is perfectly normal for the center to be more moist than a pancake. Think firm custard.*

For the Kahlua Bananas-

In a large skillet melt the butter. Sprinkle in the brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Add cinnamon and pour in the Kahlua. Heat until all bubbly.

Slice the bananas in approx. 1/2 inch circles and add to the sauce. Cook until heated through but still firm, not mushy. Baste often for 3 to 5 minutes.

Serve & Enjoy!
Shari/Red

A Few Coconut Flour Tips-

• For some recipes the batter becomes so thick and you might be tempted to add extra water to thin it out. However, adding more liquid to the batter will not make it thinner. If you want to thin the batter, you can generally do so by adding a little coconut milk or more oil.
• For some recipes the batter may seem too runny, that’s ok. When cooked, the batter will firm up and produce good results. Avoid the urge to thicken batter by adding more coconut flour. Adding more flour may produce a dry and crumbly product.  Generally, if you allow the batter to sit and rest for a few minutes, it will thicken slightly as the fiber absorbs the moisture.
• Coconut flour is gluten free and will fall apart when you make pastry.  As a replacement to gluten, leavening comes from eggs and baking powder.

This fun and festive recipe comes from Jodi Reinman, of the blog Garlic Girl. “Garlic Girl shares creative, colorful cooking with a Sicilian flare. Originally created as a way to collect and share favorite recipes with friends and family, it has evolved into a happy place to share food, life and love - and inspire others to do the same with the people they love.” We met Garlic Girl at Blog Her Food last year and let us just say that she is a whole lot of fun packed into a small package. Her blog is full of inspiring and delicious recipes that we hope you’ll check out.

Gluten Free Red Velvet Cake Pops

Ingredients

• 2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Coconut Flour
• 1-1/4 cups Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 3 heaping Tbsp Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 1-1/2 cups Canola Oil
• 1 cup Buttermilk, room temperature (or milk with 1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar)
• 5 large Eggs, room temperature
• 2 ounces Red Food Coloring
• 1 Tbsp White Distilled Vinegar
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 cup prepared or homemade Vanilla Frosting  (directions below):
• 1/2 cup Half and Half (for frosting)
• 2 Tbsp Butter (for frosting)
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract (for frosting)
• 3 cups sifted Confectioners’ Sugar (more or less to achieve thick consistency) (for frosting)

For the coating:

• 2-3 packets Wilton Candy Melts, I used chocolate mint and white chocolate
• Sprinkles, Decorations of your choice – (I used gold-colored sugar sprinkles)

Other things you’ll need:

• Lolly Pop Sticks or Wooden Skewers (I used 6 inch skewers)

Directions:

For the cake, preheat oven to 350°F and generously grease 12-inch cake pan.

In medium bowl, sift flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa and salt.

In large bowl add oil, eggs, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla extract, food coloring and beat on low with electric mixer until blended.

Slowly add dry mixture and continue to beat until batter is smooth.

Pour mixture in cake pan.

Bake for about 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out dry when inserted in top.

Cool on wire rack, remove from pan.

For cake pops, break up cake with hands or large spoon and put in mixing bowl. Continue to crumble with hands in the bowl until very crumbly. Discard any crusty or corner pieces.

For frosting, beat half and half and sugar with electric mixer until smooth. Add butter and vanilla and continue to beat until mixture forms soft peaks.

Add one cup of frosting into cake crumbs and mix well with hands.

Scoop out handful, about 1 1/2 ounces, form a round ball, and place on tray lined with parchment paper. Repeat until mixture is used up.

Cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for a minimum of 6 hours (preferably overnight). If you’re in a rush, you can place in freezer for about 40 minutes. This step is important to prevent cake pop from crumbling during the coating process.

When ready to coat, prepare the candy melts according to package directions.

Dip tips of sticks in the chocolate to coat top inch and let harden for a couple minutes. With the covered end, insert into cake ball, making sure to not go all the way through. I suggest inserting about halfway.

To coat, tilt bowl with left hand and dip and twirl the top of the pop into chocolate. Rotate for an even coat. You’ll get the hang of it after you do a couple.

Sprinkle the top with topping of your choice and place upright in the holder until dry.

Enjoy!