Product Review and Giveaway: Tropical Traditions Coconut Flour
Tropical Traditions recently sent me a large 1-kg bag of organic coconut flour to review. After taste-testing their coconut oil, I was quite eager to try coconut flour (their coconut flour has one ingredient: organic dried coconut). Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.
Coconut flour has a number of unique health benefits. Being gluten-free, coconut flour can be used for people with gluten sensitivities. It is also high in protein and fibre. Based on the packaging, 100 grams of coconut flour equates to 413 calories with 8.7 grams fat (the majority of which is saturated), 64.8 grams carbohydrates (38.5 grams fibre and 8.6 grams sugar), and 19.3 grams protein. Because coconut flour is a real food (and a plant-based one at that), we do not have to be as concerned about the amount of saturated fat and sugar: eaten in moderation, saturated fat can be quite healthy (but only if it comes from natural ingredients!), and naturally-occurring sugar is a wonderful energy source.
The bag came with a recipe for brownies on the back. 1 cup butter and 2 cups sugar deterred me from baking the Chocolate Fudge Brownies, however!
Taste-wise, I can say with full honesty that I love coconut flour. I am not a big fan of “coconut” taste, but the flour offers a slightly sweet, slightly nutty taste to a recipe. I tried three different recipes using coconut flour, and it tasted delicious in all of them.
Recipe #1: Gluten-Free Herbed Pizza Crust
This was amazing. I topped it with veggies, homemade tomato sauce, and some soy cheese. Both the boyfriend and I really enjoyed this pizza. I’m planning on making it again but instead of adding sauce and toppings, just eating it as a flatbread with hummus. Yum! I also want to try making it a vegan gluten-free bread by substituting flax and water for the eggs (I already used soy milk powder in place of the regular milk). Recipes are made to be played with!
Recipe #2: Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Cake
I invented this after finding tons of recipes for brownies and blondies made with beans. This was the result of my efforts to invent my own cake. I cobbled together a few of the base ingredients that I liked from other recipes, and then tossed in a few of my own. It was excellent and both the boyfriend and the mother dear quite enjoyed it (the mother dear would have preferred more chocolate and less peanut butter, but that’s only because she is a chocoholic and sadly is not a huge fan of nut butter. I’ll convert her yet ;)). The recipe will be appearing in my next Living Well column for The Uniter, so I will be sure to link to the recipe when the next issue comes out so that you all have access to the tasty cake!
Recipe #3: Pancakes
These went horribly awry! Coconut flour alone cannot really be used in pancakes; I don’t know if it’s the lack of gluten or if coconut flour is denser than other kinds of flour, but it simply did not work. The batter went onto the pan with the consistency of cookies rather than gloopy pancakes. When I tried to flip the pancakes, they just crumbled and fell apart! So I improvised: I flipped them as best as I could, and then when they were cook I scooped the “pancake” crumbles into a bowl, mixed in a little bit of peanut butter and agave nectar, and voila! I don’t even know what you can call it. I ate it with a fork. A spoon would also have worked well. It wound up with the consistency of an under-cooked muffin, or super-thick oatmeal. Regardless, it tasted great, and that’s what counts! If I made this again, I’d probably make it in a pan rather than on a pancake griddle, and I think I’d also eat it with a bit of milk added in addition to the nut butter and agave.
The verdict
Coconut flour is a good addition to your pantry, particularly if you have a “thing” for trying out all kinds of different health foods. Just be careful how much of it you use in your recipes! The pancakes might turn out like real pancakes if only half of the amount of flour was coconut, and the other half was spelt flour, for example. It’s something to have fun with, though, anyways!
Giveaway
You have a chance to win your very own bag of organic coconut flour! Leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me how you have salvaged a recipe-gone-wrong in the past, your favourite kind of flour to cook/bake with, or a tasty coconut flour recipe. I’ll choose a winner from the Random Number Generator, unless someone leaves a comment that really makes me giggle or is totally original or delicious (yep, I admit to playing favourites :D).
In order to qualify for the giveaway, Tropical Traditions has mandated that you must also subscribe to the Tropical Traditions newsletter (but, as I mentioned last time in the coconut oil blog post, it’s easy enough to unsubscribe once the giveaway is completed).
Winner will be announced one week from today, on Wednesday, June 30th!
Given your description of what the flour tastes like, do you remember tasting white sandwich bread while visiting me in Cambodia? It has an unusual slightly sweet taste that seems to be derived from something other than regular sugar. It isn’t really to my taste when you are eating it with savoury, as opposed to sweet sandwich fillings. Could it be they use coconut flour?
Father dear- Interesting; I hadn’t thought of that! Hmm. There’s a good chance they may have used coconut flour. Or maybe they just add a more intense sugar (like palm sugar) to the bread, which makes it seem sweeter. I’m not too sure. That would be neat to look into, though.
ooh, i’ve been wanting to try coconut flour for awhile now!!! last year i made a cherry pie that came out like soup… it had a crumb topping, so i just scooped it out and ate it as a cherry crisp 🙂 trying again this year!
I haven’t used coconut flour before, but have been meaning to give it a shot! The last time I made sangrias they came out waaayyy too strong. Luckily I had some club soda on hand to tame the beast! They turned out delicious and everyone enjoyed the sangria spritzers.
Wow, I would LOVE to try this in a pizza crust!!! SO amazing! IS the coconut taste strong?
I once made banana muffins, and forgot the sugar. Thankfully the bananas in there made it a tad bit sweet! And I slathered it with chocolate to make it sweeter. 🙂
I very raretly use recipes, so none of them go wrong. 🙂 My own creations, however… I’ll never actually admit that they went awry.
Shannon- Cherry soup crisp pie sounds AWESOME 😀
Cynthia- You… you WATERED DOWN sangria? … why would you do such a thing? 😉 Hehe. Thank goodness for club soda.
Sophia- It’s not very coconutty at all! It has a very slight sweet, nutty flavour, but it doesn’t taste like coconut. It kind of tastes the way that coconut SMELLS, if that makes any sense (which I totally prefer). Also chocolate cures everything!
Westwood- Mmmm to creativity.
I had never even heard of coconut flour, but now that I think about it, why not? It sounds like a good thing to have in the cupboard! Love the experiments…
Gah, I feel like I’m in the movie Goundhog Day, because I WAS gonna say “We are simpatico, because I don’t like the taste of coconut either. Fresh, shredded, coconut milk, all YUCK. The only thing I like is coconut water, and I have to be VERY thirsty.” But wait ,that is what I said for the coconut oil giveaway. (Didn’t win –*sigh*) Truly though, I have been experimenting with other flours, buckwheat, spelt, I hear there is even one made from beans! Can’t wait to try coconut. Sounds healthy and tasty, too.
My brothers can’t stand the taste of coconut, but they LOVE anything that I make with coconut flour. As long as I don’t make a coconut based icing, they gobble up cake, pies, squares, muffins, and cupcakes without batting an eye lash.
This revelation was critical, as I have to eat gluten-free, and I love baking. I’m renowned for making wonderful desserts for celebrations. Thankfully coconut flour has enabled me to continue this tradition, and still join in eating my creation. Hurray!
I haven’t tried making a pizza crust with coconut flour yet, but your photo has me thinking that could be something to try this weekend. Yum!
rollerbeth at gmail dot com
coconut flour sounds amazing. I don’t eat gluten and I’m trying to decrease the amount of gluten my family eats, this would be a great addition to my pantry.
I have just recently heard of coconut flour and immediately bought some. I haven’t had time to bake with it yet but I do put it in my smoothies to thicken and sweeten them. I agree with the others that it is sweet but not really coconutty. I am pumped to try the pizza crust, but alas, I am heading out of town for a week so it will have to wait.
I’d love to try this! Maybe for bread or pizza dough. Thanks for the giveaway.
s.mickelson at gmail dot com
I’ve really enjoyed Gluten Free Mama’s Coconut Blend (organic coconut flour paired with white rice, tapioca, and sweet rice flours with potato starch).
I’ve never experimented with coconut flour, but I’d love to start! How do I enter your drawing?
Hanlie- I can see you having SO much fun with it 🙂
Mary- We’re just the same person, that’s all 😉 Love it.
Beth- I’m in agreement with your brothers!
Neven- I really like the gluten-free aspect. It seems like so many people have different sensitivities that it’s really nice to see so many different choices out there for substitutions and replacements in cooking.
Cindy & Sue- Let me know what you think about it if you do try it (and I always LOVE to hear about tweaks to recipes to perfect them!).
Renee- Interesting blend! That’s something I would be interested in trying out, too.
Sarah- From the review above: To enter to win, “leave a comment at the bottom of this post telling me how you have salvaged a recipe-gone-wrong in the past, your favourite kind of flour to cook/bake with, or a tasty coconut flour recipe. I’ll choose a winner from the Random Number Generator, unless someone leaves a comment that really makes me giggle or is totally original or delicious (yep, I admit to playing favourites 😀 ). In order to qualify for the giveaway, Tropical Traditions has mandated that you must also subscribe to the Tropical Traditions newsletter.” 🙂
Wow, gluten-free pizza crust made with coconut flour. Not only will my taste-buds die and go to heaven but I will incur a full-body massage from my boyfriend if I use your marvelous recipe! He doesn’t like to admit it, but he misses shoving his face full of crunchy chewy pizza crust (gluten intolerance), and his favorite food in the entire world is coconut anything.
I just used coconut flour in a bread recipe I found online, created by Annie B. Bond. The loaf didn’t last more than one night. He really is a human health food incinerator.
Bake Today Gone Tonight Bread
1 C quinoa
1 C millet
1 C sesame seed (non-hulled)
(soak these three ingredients overnight to sprout, then rinse with water)
1-2 C lowfat almond milk
1 C coconut flour
4 T coconut oil
1/2 C water
2 T flaxseed meal (for egg substitute)
3 t honey or sweetener to taste
1 t baking soda
3 t baking powder
1 t sea salt
-Grease standard size bread pan with coconut oil
-Preheat oven to 350
-Rinse and strain quinoa, sesame, and millet and put in blender with 1 C of the almond milk and sweetener.
You might have to to this in two shifts if your blender is small
-Mix blended ingredients in a bowl with the coconut flour, soda, powder, and salt
-Bring water, coconut oil, and flax to a boil and let simmer until the flax gets glutinous
then add to bowl mixture
-Mix well. You want the mixture to be slightly thinner than cake batter but not too runny,
which is the reason the recipe calls for up to 2 C of almond milk. Add more almond milk
if needed and mix.
-Pour into greased pan and bake for about one hour.
Annie also recommends covering the bread with foil if the center is taking a long time to stiffen or the top is browning too quickly.
-Remove from oven and cut a nice thick slice or five for yourself and place in secure hiding place before presenting bread to tornado-mouthed significant other.
-Pick a nice safe perch from which to view the carnage.
-Casually mention how you must have pulled a few muscles slaving over the bread batter…
Hope you try and enjoy Annie’s recipe. She says she took years perfecting it.
Mara
Well, I still have to try the coconut flour and would love the opportunity to give it a try for “free”. I made German pancakes the other morning and I guess my flour was old and “flat”, because that is exactly how my pancakes came out. I would dearly love to try making them with the coconut flour as they are my favorite way to make pancakes. My favorite topping on them is jam!!! Any kind, though I really love peach! I so love the taste of fresh coconut, but don’t really like the coconut water. I am anxious to give all the coconut products a try.
I subscribe to the Tropical Traditions newsletter.
I’d love to try this recipe as we have zucchini from our garden coming out our ears!
Zucchini Pancakes (Gluten-free)
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1 medium stalk zucchini, ends removed and coarsely grated
2 eggs
2-3 tablespoons virgin coconut oil or expeller-pressed coconut oil
1 teaspoon red onion, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons asiago cheese, grated (or to taste)
2-3 fresh basil leaves, minced
1 teaspoon coconut flour
Himalayan salt, to taste
Grate zucchini into a bowl. Add eggs and mix thoroughly.
Start heating oil in a large skillet.
Add onion, black pepper, asiago cheese and basil to the zucchini. If the batter looks too liquidly, add a bit of coconut flour just to thicken slightly.
When the oil is hot but not smoking, put a forkful of batter into the pan, immediately mashing it down with a fork to spread the batter and form thin pancakes that can crisp easily. Repeat till pan is full. It’s OK if the pancakes run together.
When the pancakes are golden brown or deeper brown on the underside, flip them over and cook on the second side. If they have stuck together, cut them in the skillet and flip them individually. When golden brown on the second side, remove pancakes. Drain on paper towels.
I like to add salt at the table rather than in the batter.
Mara- Thanks for the awesome recipe! And the imagery of your boyfriend has me in giggles.
Deanna- I’m not much of a coconut water person, either 🙂
Melissa- You know, I’m not a big zucchini fan or savoury pancake fan, but I recently had potato pancakes and they were super yummy! These could be fun to try out.
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