Due to my own curiosity, and reader questions, I have squeezed in some almost-non-existent time to test a few more pumpkin bread recipes using both almond and coconut flour. Are you interested in testing them for me? If so, here goes.
I’d love your feedback, and since I’m heads down working on a cookbook with deadlines looming, all help is greatly appreciated! Even if it’s just to say that it worked. Please leave your feedback in the comments area so others can learn from your experience.
Some things I’d be curious to know:
- Did you try it as a muffin or bread? How much time did it take to bake?
- What are your oven settings?
- Did you use roasted pumpkin or canned?
- What kind of sweetener did you use?
- Did you use substitutes for the listed ingredients?
This post is a bit of an experiment, and I may do this again with a few other recipes that are either on Comfy Belly already, or exist in some variation on Comfy Belly. Quite often others reading these recipes have more experience than I do in changing things up, and know the best technique to accomplish something. If you’re comfortable sharing, I welcome the feedback on any recipe. It’s how I learn, and how many others learn. So thanks, in advance, if you do try a recipe and leave feedback. We love you for it.
Below are two recipes for pumpkin bread: one using just almond and coconut flour, and another using bananas, almond flour, and coconut flour. I’ve also included an easy recipe to make your own roasted pumpkin, if you’re game and you have some squash hanging around looking pretty.
Roasted Pumpkin and Other Squash
Roasted pumpkin is quite easy to make, however both canned and fresh work in my pumpkin recipes. For 2 cups of pumpkin puree, I use a pumpkin or other orange-fleshed squash (such as Kuri or Butternut) that weighs about 2 pounds (about 1 kilogram). The only disclaimer I would add is that fresh pumpkin puree tends to be moister, which can affect your recipe (the bread with fresh puree may be moister and take longer to bake). I drain off excess water with a spoon, when possible.
Also, it can be quite treacherous cutting up some of these pumpkins and squash, so if you can’t cut without endangering your fingers or other body parts, try cracking it open by making a few cuts in strategic places around the squash and then prying it open with your hands, or give it a gentle bounce on a hard surface. Once I accidentally dropped a pumpkin and it split open into two decent halves. So the smashing pumpkins technique is something to consider. Under controlled conditions, of course.
- Preheat your oven to 400° F/200° C.
- Wash and cut the pumpkin in half (any way works).
- Scoop out the seeds with a fork or spoon.
- Place each half face down on a greased baking pan with a slight rim to catch any juices.
- Bake for 40 minutes, or until the squash is tender.
- Cool the pumpkin for several minutes and then scoop out the pumpkin flesh and place in a food processor.
- Pulse the pumpkin in the food processor until it is smooth.
- Remove any excess water, and then it’s ready to use, or freeze for up to a year.
Pumpkin Bread (using almond and coconut flour)
Ingredients
- 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
- 1 cup of almond flour
- 1/3 cup of coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup of roasted pumpkin
- 1/4 cup of olive oil (or other oil)
- 1/2 cup of honey (or maple syrup)
- 1/2 cup of small walnuts pieces (optional)
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350° F/175° C.
- Blend all the dry ingredients together.
- Add the wet ingredients together, blend well, and then mix them into the dry ingredients. I use a mixer to ensure the batter is well blended.
- Oil or butter the baking pan, or line it with parchment paper.
- Add the batter to a baking pan.
- Bake for 45 minutes, or until browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the bread comes out clean.
Pumpkin Banana Bread (using banana, almond flour, and coconut flour)
Ingredients
- 3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt
- 3/4 cup of almond flour
- 1/4 cup of coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup of roasted pumpkin (or canned)
- 1 large ripe banana (1/2 cup mashed)
- 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of honey (or maple syrup)
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil (or other oil)
- 1/2 cup of small walnuts pieces (optional)
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350° F/175° C.
- Blend all the dry ingredients together.
- Add the wet ingredients together, blend well, and then mix them into the dry ingredients. I use a mixer to ensure the batter is well blended.
- Oil or butter the baking pan, or line it with parchment paper.
- Add the batter to a baking pan.
- Bake for 45 minutes, or until browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the bread comes out clean.
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What is the reasoning behind adding coconut flour?
Is it really required? I can only do almond flour so
Seeing coconut in recipes tends to make me wonder why it is used.
good question. Some folks like reducing the amount of almond flour they use, and coconut flour makes baked goods a bit lighter (and adds some healthy fiber). It also lends a bit of elasticity to bread that nut flour can’t do. But if you can only use almond flour then use the recipe for pumpkin bread using just that (see pumpkin recipes on this site).
I’m glad to try one of these since I just cooked up a pumpkin yesterday and have pureed pumpkin taking over my small rv refrigerator…LOL! I did not roast mine though, I pressure cooked my pumpkin so it may have more water in it. Coconut flour will probably be to my advantage! I shall get started and report back.
p.s. You have a wonderful site here! The granola recipe using the quinoa flakes is a favorite in our house now:-)
that would be great! thanks!
Just made the top recipe and they turned out beautifully. I would reduce the salt tho – 1/2 tsp. is a bit salty- I think 1/4tsp would be enough and I used Canned pumpkin (cause I had it) and they are super moist and yummy. Also they turned out fine with just 1/3 cup honey. I made them as muffins and baked for 60min. tinted with foil.
Thanks for the pumpkin goodness!
Hi! Quick question as I can’t seem to find the answer, but what size bread/loaf pans do you use for your recipes? I would love to try them. Thank you!
Woops. Sorry, yes, I usually use a Magic Line pan lined with parchment paper, but you can also just grease your baking pan. Magic line is tiny: 3.5 x 7.5 inches, but sometimes I go bigger in a glass baking pan that is 7.5 x 4.5 or a bit more. The banana pumpkin recipe can fill a larger pan than the Magic Line. thanks for asking!!
Here’s my report back: I made the non-banana recipe as muffins and they turned out FANTASTIC! I cook/bake on a smaller propane powered rv range so my oven temp might be off a little. Example, the one time I checked the muffins, my oven thermometer said the temp was nearing 400 deg. I also don’t have a muffin tin at the moment, but used individual silicon muffin cups on a cookie sheet. 45 minutes was a sufficient baking time for my oven.
As for the recipe, I used 2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice in place of the individual spices and my pumpkin puree was pressure cooked rather than roasted. I also opted for maple syrup because I thought it would be lighter and I used avocado oil for the oil since it doesn’t have much of a flavor to me unlike olive oil. I didn’t put walnuts in because I didn’t have any.
The muffins came out light and fluffy and delicious:-)
Christina, that’s great feedback. Thank you much! Interesting that the oven temp wavered so much, but not entirely uncommon. I love avocado oil! I don’t bake with it much due to cost. I actually use it on my skin (beauty tip
).
i question if you don’t mind – i’m curious because that seems like a lot of eggs for the amount of flours. is that due to it being coconut and almond flour based? and why can you reduce it when the banana is added? is that because it provides some of the fluid rather than it all coming from the eggs? thanks.
I did try reducing it but it was much denser, but I’m open to someone trying it again. The coconut flour is 1/3 cup, which is a bit more than I usually add in combos (1/4 cup).
I made the second one, but doubled the pumpkin and left the banana out. I meant to add a touch of stevia to compensate’ but forgot! Turned out like a typical grain free muffin to me…kind of custards and mist. A wholesome snack to nosh on!
Banana acts as a binder like eggs….
so good to know. I learn most from my oops moments (mistakes). Ah, so did it fall apart at all?
Hi Erica, Not sure if you were specifically looking for people to make your recipe with changes, but I made the Pumpkin Banana bread in a loaf pan per your recipe. I used fresh roasted/puréed pumpkin and kept everything else the same. I really liked using the flours together allowing for a little bit of a denser bread. It came out great. I will post again when I try the other recipe.
thanks. yes, I found it denser than the pumpkin muffins using just coconut flour.
Hey Erica! I absolutely love your site…I’ve made your banana bread and it was so delicious! I love experimenting with almond meal and coconut flour. Question–and I apologize, because I’m sure you get this all the time, but do you think it would be ok if I made the pumpkin banana bread with almond meal instead of almond flour? Thanks so much!
Thanks Alexis. No problem. I’m not sure how it will turn out with almond meal, but since it’s a bread it might be just fine, but have a slightly grainier taste.
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I made the pumpkin banana bread with Trader Joe’s almond meal and coconut flour as per the recipe. I used pie pumpkin that I had roasted and frozen. I used 1/4 cup honey and about 8 drops of the vanilla cream stevia. I baked these as muffins at 350 for 30 minutes. Put a walnut half on the top of each one. The recipe made 8 smallish muffins. I think I’d back off on the cloves just a bit next time and add something. With the strong cloves, a creamy icing would be nice. They seemed to need a extra something. Maybe they needed that honey!
lots of changes there, but I totally understand why. I wonder if almond meal works well? I use blanched almond flour. that could be it as well. Thanks!
I also did the first recipe as muffins. It took only 25 min. They turned out really well, just like all the other recipes I’ve tried from this site. Thanks so much!
Aukje
I also did the first recipe as muffins. It took only 25 min. They turned out really well. I roasted the pumpkin, but added slightly less honey and oil… Thanks so much!
Aukje
that’s great to know the time on the muffins. Thanks! ah, and a bit less honey and oil. I did think it could hold up with less oil. Good to know. Best wishes, Erica
Tried the all-pumpkin recipe yesterday with great results: perfect texture, delicious pumpkin-spice flavor, looked just right at 45 minutes in my 350 oven. Used blanched almond flour, honey, etc., as called for. Only changes were that I exchanged the 1/2 tsp. cloves for 1/2 tsp. allspice, and I used coconut oil instead of olive. Will make again! I’m now trying the pumpkin banana bread recipe again with blanched almond flour instead of the almond meal that I used the first time. Will post when it cools!
that’s great. Thanks! Yes, some prefer all-spice. Ah, blanched vs meal. Good to know.
Did you try it as a muffin or bread? How much time did it take to bake? Bread. I had on 325 35 min in error and then 20 @ 350
What are your oven settings? see above
Did you use roasted pumpkin or canned? canned
What kind of sweetener did you use? agave
Did you use substitutes for the listed ingredients? yes. 2 eggs and 1/2 cut greek yogurt, 1/2 cup 70% cacao chips.
It is moist. I would do same way if made again. Hope this feedback guides you in the product you wish to obtain.
p.s. I used 1/4 cup agave and 1/4 cup coconut sugar
Thanks! Ah, balancing out the moisture from the yogurt and the coconut sugar. ok, I was wondering if you added oil. Maybe you don’t need the oil if you have the yogurt? Just a thought.
I do appreciate the recipes with both flours (almond and coconut). I don’t like eating too much almond flour in baked goods but it does tend to taste better with some in than all coconut (to me – kids don’t notice). I wanted to comment about sweeteners. I always use yogurt in place of half the honey (or sweetener) and it turns out wonderfully. Just made the (all) almond flour pumpkin bread today as I wanted to indulge and with 1/4 C yogurt, 1/4 C honey it was plenty sweet for me. I like the idea of cutting sugar a bit. Thanks for all of your wonderful grain free recipes!
Jill, that’s a great tip. I didn’t realize yogurt can balance out sweetness. It definitely adds to the texture and moistness of a baked bread or muffin. So good to know.
One thing I’ve noticed about sweetness is when I haven’t had very sweet things for a while, I notice it more. So it’s a gradual sensitization process. The less sugar you have, the less you need. It does work over time (or works for me).
Hi Erica, I finally got around to making the Pumpkin (only) bread. I doubled the recipe, used fresh puréed pumpkin and followed your recipe as is – used honey, omitted nuts. The only thing that I had to do was bake for 1 hour, my bread pans are slightly larger than yours and one pan was in for 1 hr 5 min. It was a nice, moist bread. Again I liked the combo of the two flours.
Thank you for your continued efforts and posts, I always enjoy them.
Nice to hear! thanks. I double-up a lot too.
I made the first recipe (the one without pumpkin). I made it into 12 muffins (perfect amount for 12 muffins, by the way!)
I usually find that muffins take much less time than loaves, so I set a timer for 20 minutes to start with, rather than 45. But I checked on it at about 15 minutes and they were done– in fact, the outsides were already quite dark! I used the temp you suggested (350)– I think my oven might run quite hot. Luckily even though the outsides are very dark they don’t taste burnt, they are just a bit tougher. The insides are perfect.
I used canned pure pumpkin and raw local honey, and the substitutions I made were coconut oil instead of olive oil, and potassium salt instead of sea salt. Oh, and I didn’t use walnuts because I didn’t have any.
These are really delicious, subtly sweet and besides being quite filling, you’d never be able to say they’re made with almond and coconut flour. Ever since I stopped eating wheat/rice, I’ve failed at every baked good I’ve made (which is quite frustrating since some of these ingredients are pretty pricey!). These are the first that have come out right, thank you so much for this recipe!
In my above comment I said I made the recipe without pumpkin– silly me! I meant the recipe without bananas
Thanks Rue! wow, they cupcakes were done quickly. Sounds like they were a bit overdone. Coconut flour gets tough when it’s over done. Good to know.
This pumpkin bread was the moistest I have ever made, or maybe even had. However, I will double the spices because it wasn’t flavorful enough for me. Even the pumpkin flavor was weak, but I used Libby’s canned, so maybe if I roast my own pumpkin. I didn’t have coconut flour so I made my own, however, I didn’t pay attention to the part where you make milk or dehydrate, I just put Bob’s coconut flakes in the Vitamix until they were powdered. Then I adjusted the honey and only used 1/4 cup. I used coconut oil (seems I was in a tropical mood, huh?) instead of olive oil and used chopped pecans. I will make this again with the changes I mentioned but a fantastic recipe for someone who is just giving up unbeached flour. Thanks
Oh, yeah, 350 degree convection oven, middle rack. I used small loaf tins and it took 30 minutes until a dry toothpick.
I made a single loaf and used the recommended maple syrup instead of honey. It is indeed delicious but I am having a hard time digesting it. Anyone else suffer from inflammation with this? It’s my first home baked good using coconut flour. I used store bought kind and almond flour/meal (both from Bob’s Red Mill).
Bob’s can be a bit courser grind of flour, in general. Or it could be the coconut flour, which is high in fiber and can be a bit challenging for some. My trick for Bob’s (although I prefer Tropical Traditions brand) is to grind it up further in a food processor.
wow! just made the first recipe. it was super! thank you erica! and thank you jill for your suggestions.
i used canned pumpkin, 1/4C yogurt and 1/4C honey and baked 3 mini loaves = 2.5″x5″. @325 convection oven. i just whisked instead of using the mixer.
results were light, moist, perfect sweetness and spices. everyone raved about the bread – better tasting than even traditional breads!!
happy holidays to all!
You’re welcome! I hadn’t thought to add yogurt – so glad it worked. Sounds like it was sweet enough with half the honey. thanks for sharing this!
I made the all pumpkin ones and they were great! I used coconut oil, canned pumpkin (was in the cabinet), Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus blend in place of the spices, and popped it in a muffin pan. Perfect moist muffins! After SEVERAL gluten free pumpkin muffin fails this recipe really really made my weekend
thank you for the recipe!
For those who think the Bob’s Almond Flour is a bit “gritty” i have been using Honeyville Blanched Almond Flour and it is less grainy than Bobs Red Mill. Also, try sifting the almond flour although this can take some time.
Yes, sifting works well. You can also put Bob’s flour in a food processor to grind it down a bit.
Loved it! I made the first recipe. I used coconut oil and the almond flour was the Bob Mills brand, which I think is considered almond meal? Gave it a nutty flavor and texture; my husband loved it. I also made them as cupcakes and cooked them for 23 minutes on 350. Definitely a keeper. It could’ve been sweeter to me, so might add some Enjoy Life chocolate chips next time or a little more honey
Oops, meant to say muffins!