Coconut flour yellow cake - great for birthday cakes! Gluten and grain free.

My husband's birthday was several weeks ago and one dessert item he's had a hankering for is good old fashion yellow birthday cake. The only problem is our son can't have wheat, so that nixes the majority of recipes out there. I know that I could have used a gluten-free flour to make a close substitute, but to be honest I'm not a huge fan of the GF flours on the market. They are often filled with ingredients that I'd prefer to avoid in our diet. So, instead I made a very delicious version using coconut flour.

I've messed with this recipe over the last year on and off again, playing around with different ingredients. This time because I wanted to provide something more similar to a traditional birthday cake I went with more traditional ingredients, like organic white sugar instead of honey and butter instead of coconut oil. I have shared a coconut flour chocolate cake recipe we use all the time. You can get away with a different variety of ingredients with chocolate cake, because the chocolate masks some of the flavors, but with a white cake a flavor like honey or coconut oil will be much more pronounced.

Chocolate Coconut Flour Cake Sweetened w/ Honey

I was in a bit of a whimsical mood on this cake making day and Valentines day was on my mind. Out came the heart shaped cookie cutter and I had fun making some bite size pieces of cake.

This is one of those cakes I've been trying to master for a while. Frankly, I've been trying to figure out the best ways to use coconut flour in general. There has been a whole lot of trial and error and a whole lot more failure than successes, but that's how it goes sometimes. I happen to like challenges and I've been determined to come up with a chocolate coconut flour cake that can hold it's own next to one of those typical white flour cakes. Method is key to making this cake as it will make a drastic difference in how light the cake will turn out.


If you've never used coconut flour, I'd highly recommend trying it out. I purchase mine,  from Tropical Traditions. Actually I'm not sure who else even sells it.

When I originally started making this cake I was working with enough ingredients for only one layer. However, in this last attempt I split the batter in half between two pans and was very pleased with how it turned out. I haven't tried to put all the batter in one pan as of yet. It would likely work fine, I just question whether the cake might loose some of it's volume. The cake layers are not overly tall, so if you want a more typical cake with some height I'd recommend doubling this recipe and making 4 layers.

This is a dark and rich cake, but not overly sweet (that tends to be my style for baked goods), if you really prefer a sweet cake you could increase the honey by an additional 1/4 cup. For an icing, forgo the classic butter and powdered sugar frosting for a deliciously thick, homemade vanilla whip cream. It's the perfect companion.  For the pictures in this post, I baked the cake in two 8"x8" square pans. An 8" round would work too, but if you do a 9" round you'll probably want to check the cake after it has baked for about 20 minutes.