So I had a bag of coconut flour sitting on the counter next to my trusty almond flour. I have been fairly adept at using almond flour and have grown to love the taste over traditional flour. Seeing how I eat mostly whole foods the almond flour fits that bill being only 1 ingredient.
Coconut Flour vs Almond Flour
But almond flour is high in calories so the banana bread I bake, while tasting delicious, is high in calories. Well worth it when I am at full workload in the gym, but not so much if I am taking a break from training and reducing food intake.
So the coconut flour was staring back at me, daring me to use it, as it has a lot less calories, and you can use a lot less per bake. So it was time to make my banana bread again and I though; why not experiment.
So I did the same bake as I normally do (see banana recipe above) except for I substituted 1 cup of the almond flour for 1 cup of the coconut flour. BIG MISTAKE.
Coconut flour absorbs way to much liquid, and the resulting mixture was dry. So I added some water to make it a pliable dough but it still was quite thick (like paste).
I baked it at the same temperature, for about 40 minutes. But truth be told it could have gone in for another 10 minutes or so. When I removed it and cooled it, it broke apart in 2 places when I removed it from the baking pan.
And when cutting it was a lot more dry and brittle. But now for the all important taste test.
Banana Bread with Some Coconut Flour Sliced
First of the look is all wrong, it does not have the brown color and smooth texture of the all almond flour recipe (see below).
All Almond Flour Banana Bread
Second the texture is more grainy and the taste is a lot dryer. The coconut flour absorbs most of the liquids so it is a bit dry.
Third and finally because of the coconut flour absorbing liquid the overall taste of sweetness is lost. The bananas seem to be lost in the coconut flour and it is not as sweet as the almond flour version.
All in all I would not use the coconut flour again, at least in conjunction with the almond flour. It just does not taste as good. I would probably look at an all coconut flour recipe that will use more liquid and less flour. But still textually it will be grainy and drier than the almond flour version.
Conclusion:
For me, the extra calories in the almond flour version is totally worth it for the taste alone. I have had coconut flour specific bread recipes and they always are dry, grainy, and need to have sweetener added to them.
Stick with almond flour it just is as textually as close to real flour and still maintains good flavor.