This is a recipe I slightly hesitate to post, not because it isn’t delicious, but because despite testing it countless times, and lots of tweaking, I’m still not entirely sure why it behaves in the way that it does. I’m new to using coconut flour, and in fact only really happened to try it because my husband had been doing keto and had bought it for that. The most frustrating thing, which I can’t understand is that it only seems to work in cupcake/muffin format; any larger, like a loaf tin, and it’s dense and brick-like. No idea why this is. Secondly, you need to let it sit overnight after you bake it, before eating. Even if you let it cool completely, if you open them up on the day they’re baked they don’t hold together very well, and they’re very wet, almost like a mousse-cake. However if you wait until the next day, the sponge seems to have “set” for want of a better description, and you can pull them apart to find a nice light sponge (as in the pic below), which is moist, and keeps for days and days if kept in an airtight container. I can only assume that the coconut flour (which is way more absorbent than wheat flour) is continuing to soak up moisture from the mixture after baking, and that’s why it needs the overnight rest to fully absorb the moisture?
If you do want to eat them on the day, then they are still delicious, but much more pudding-like, so in that case I’d recommend you eat them warm with a scoop of ice cream or glug of pouring cream as a dessert. Whereas the next day, you could call it a muffin.
This is a small batch, because I figure with everyone at home so much, and social gatherings being off the cards for most of us right now, a small batch might be just what’s needed?
You will need a muffin tin lined with 5 muffin cases.
[recipe-ingredients]- 1 large egg
- 75g sour cream
- 25ml vegetable oil
- 75ml hot water (hand hot, not boiling)
- 100g soft light brown sugar
- 50g coconut flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder (check it’s a gluten-free version)
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 35g unsweetened cocoa
- 40ml whole milk
- Heat the oven to 200’c/180’c fan/gas mark 6.
- Whisk the egg with the sour cream, vegetable oil, water and sugar, then add the dry ingredients and whisk until completely smooth. Whisk in the milk.
- Divide the mixture between the 5 muffin cases, then bake for 20 minutes by which point they should be well risen and cracked on top, and a skewer should come out clean.
- As per the intro, either eat them warm with ice cream/pouring cream as a dessert on the day you bake them, or let them cool completely, then place in an airtight container at room temp and leave them to rest overnight before serving.
