Red White & Blue Coconut Flour Cupcakes (Gluten/Grain/Soy/Nut Free)

Several days ago I took a vote on my Facebook page to ask if you all would prefer a 4th of July recipe using Coconut, Almond or Cashew Flour. I was actually quite surprised when coconut held the strongest vote by  a long shot! As promised- here is my  festive creation! These cupcakes are a a ton of fun to make, and turn out really cute! (Plus they taste great too!)

 Every time I post a recipe I know exactly what substitution questions are going to come my way. So here’s the scoop: 

•  There is no easy egg free substitution in coconut flour recipes. Baking without the eggs when using this flour is very difficult if not impossible in many cases. You have to make some pretty creative changes and typically add a good amount of starch to the recipe. Adding a grain based flour can really help as well. BUT, since this recipe is grain free it heavily depends on its eggs to cook through, and to get any sort of lift when baking. There are some other tips around this subject that I will discuss in the future.
• Coconut flour CANNOT be exchanged with any other grain free flour cup for cup. People often make the assumption that Almond will work in its place. This is not the case in 99% of recipes.
• When it comes to Coconut Flour recipes your best bet is to make them as they are, and not try to make a ton of substitutions. This flour can be finicky and needs things to be just so. Save yourself some grief and follow recipes as written, or find a new one that meets your dietary needs.
• For those looking for avoid starch- I’m honestly not sure what will happen if you pull it from this recipe. It might work (but it also might not..) I did not get far enough along in my recipe development experimentation to offer you a dependable solution to this question.
• For this recipe I call for 1/2 cup of granulated sugar. This can be just about any variety that you choose- however if you want the white stripe in the middle of your cupcake to look white then I would go for a white sugar such as Organic Cane Sugar or Xylitol for those wanting to do sugar free. If Palm Sugar is what you prefer, you could use that- in which case you might consider just making the entire cupcake blue as otherwise the white portion of the batter will end up with a hint of brown.

Red White & Blue Cupcakes.

4 Large Eggs
1/2 Cup Milk (Dairy or Nondairy- any variety)
2 Tsp. Vanilla Extract 
2 Tbs Oil or Melted Butter (any mild tasting variety)
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar. (see note above)
1 Tsp. Baking Powder (I use double acting)
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1/2 packed Cup Coconut Flour 
3 Tbs Tapioca or Arrowroot.

Natural Food Coloring (or regular)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 9-10 cupcakes liners in muffin tin. (I like using white liners to show off the stripes in the cupcakes).
2. In a blender combine the Eggs, Milk, Vanilla and Oil. Blend on high for about 30 seconds. Add in the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.
3. Pour 2/3 of the batter into a bowl and add blue food coloring a little at a time until it reaches the color blue that you like.
4. Using a spoon plop and smooth a heaping TBS of blue batter into each of the cupcake liner. Then place a spoonful of white batter, then finish off with a second spoonful of Blue. Do this carefully as you don’t want the colors to mix.
5. Place in oven and bake 28-30 minutes.

For this recipe to keep things nut free I used a Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting that I created for my cookbooks. It worked perfectly with these cupcakes as the flavor is extremely complimentary and the frosting has a nice structure and holds up well to the big pretty strawberry I placed on top.  This recipe can be found in both the Essential Gluten Free Baking Guide Part 1 and the Essential Gluten Free Baking Guide Part 2. It is comprised of ground up coconut flakes and a few other ingredients (Beyond being nut free its also vegan, soy free and egg free as well).  Both books are available on amazon and are also available for kindle. (For more info on the content of these books read this.)

For those of you looking to keep things natural as I do- Check out India Tree. They have some fun naturally colored sprinkles too!

I used blue and white stripes in this recipe, as I was short on red food coloring. With red I find I need to use 10 times more to get the color I want. So, with that being said if you have a full bottle of red stocked in your pantry and you want red and white stripes instead- Go for it! If you go that route try throwing some blueberries on top of your cupcakes instead.

Nuts.com makes the best coconut flour in my opinion! Check out their amazing and fun online store! You’ll find about a million other things you’ll want to try.

Hope you all have a wonderful relaxing 4th-  filled with great food, and even better company!

-Brittany-

Ps. Happy belated Canada Day to my friends up north!