What's All This Coconut Flour Stuff, Anyway?

Baking Trial 053, 29 June 2013

The adult daughter of a friend mentioned Coconut Flour as useful in various gluten-free baking recipes. Naturally I had to give it a go!

Nosing around for a baseline reference coconut flour formula, I came across the Coconut-Flour Chocolate Cake as described by one Sarah Shilhavy, often referred to and linked to in the GF Baking Universe.

A glance at the Shilhavy formula suggested that a few alterations were in order, despite Ms. Shilhavy’s dire warning that she would not be responsible for baking failures should the slightest deviation from her ingredient list or process steps be made.


Planned alterations include:

• Substitute liquid oil for the butter;
• Reduce egg content—most coconut-flour recipes are quite eggy;
• Reduce oil maybe 10% to equal a classic chiffon oil:yolk ratio;
• Adjust total watery liquids—coconut flour is thirsty;
• Add raisin pureé and honey, adjust sugar balance;
• Increase vanilla;
• Add Rice Bran Extract for better loft and shelf-life.

Egg Whites       144g (4 eggs)
Flour, Coconut    90g
Egg Yolks         81g (4 eggs)
Milk, Whole Fluid 81g
Sugar, superfine  72g (½ in drys, ½ in meringue)
Oil, Sunflower    57g
Honey             37g
Cocoa Powder      35g
Raisins, Whole    29g (pureéd)
Vanilla            3.4g (~1 tsp.) 
Baking Soda        2.8g
Sea Salt           2.4g
Baking Powder      1.3g
Rice Bran Extract  0.7g
 

Preparation is unremarkable, using chiffon-batter methods (see other entries this weblog): beat egg yolks, prepare an emulsion by whipping in a slow drizzle of oil, mix in wets, stir in sifted drys; and finally fold in French chiffon (egg whites to soft peak, then 1/2 sugar). Batter is thick and non-flowing, and must be manually smoothed into the pan cups.

Baking took a little longer, as expected because extra water (in milk) was necessary to make a workable batter, so taking longer to bake the moisture off: 21½min. at 320°F in canoe pans over boiling-water pan. Canoe cups prepped with palm shortening with lecithinated nonstick overspray.

Also a single 4½" cake was prepared from excess batter, needing 24min. for a clean toothpick. Total equivalent yield was 10 canoe cakes for the listed scaling.

Baking rise and shrinkback is typical for GF formulations, though not as dramatic as with most of the rice-potato-tapioca formulas. Pan release is clean.

For the ¼cup batter portions dispensed into the canoe cups, the resulting cakes were a little smallish compared to the canonical Twinkie dimensions; however, as these coconut-based cakes are comparatively dense and chewy, the smaller portion is about right.

Analysis of ingredients and outcome for this trial:

Figure     per 54.1g coconut-flour cake
Protein    5.2g
Fats       9.9g
Starches   4.2g
Fiber      4.5g
Sugars    13.2g
Sodium     232mg
Energy    184kCal


Note that protein and fiber levels are much higher compared to other GF cakes described earlier in this weblog—and of course much, much higher than the trace amounts present in classic Golden Sponge Cakes.

Sensory evaluation & comments from the Browne Crowe Bakes Sensory Evaluation Team:

• Dense but not too-moist or gummy; brownie-like texture;
• Not too sweet (sugar content ~25% less than classic chiffon);
• Rather chewy with shredded-coconut grainy mouthfeel;
• Good cocoa aroma and flavor. Extra vanilla complements cocoa;
• Formula is designed for long shelf-life, but trial samples did not stay uneaten long enough for full evaluation.

Overall the outcome of Trial 053 is satisfactory.

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As a formula tweak I might try adding some milled flax to gain a little extra loft and yield. Gumminess can be a problem with flax hydrocolloids, but a little extra rice bran extract might help with that...

Beekeeping for Poets

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