You look like you could use a slice of coconut cake…
A big slice of soft coconut cake… for breakfast!
Yes, coconut cake for breakfast.
Cake so soft and crumbly and sweet, bursting with juicy pineapple and luxurious vanilla… You’ll feel as if you went to bed and woke up in paradise, and then you won’t want breakfast to end!
Above, glazed with coconut milk and Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar.
Brunch time!
This year, I celebrated Easter twice. Emily’s parents drove up on Saturday morning, and she and I hosted a fancy Easter brunch. (Emily is my friend with whom I share a house. I call her my roommate, but luckily we have our own rooms!)
And Emily made mimosas, as well as some non-vegan foods. It was quite a big mess to clean up afterwards. So many dishes…
Her parents loved the coconut cake and had two slices each, even though there was a ton of other food!
I was originally calling it coconut bread because it’s cooked in a loaf pan, but they said the recipe was so soft and cakey that it was more like a breakfast cake than a bread.
Coconut Breakfast Cake
(makes 1 large loaf)
- 1 cup spelt or white flour (or this: gluten-free version)
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp Ener-g or 2 tbsp ground flax (If you must, you can omit. The loaf just won’t rise as much)
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp sugar, unrefined if desired, or xylitol
- 1/8 tsp uncut stevia OR 1/4 cup more sugar
- 2 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (240g) crushed pineapple, drained (You can sub ripe banana)
- 1/2 cup full-fat canned coconut milk (see nutrition link below, for a lower-fat option)
- optional ingredients: chopped macadamia nuts or walnuts, shredded coconut, rum extract
Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine all wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine dry and stir well. Mix dry into wet, but don’t overmix. Pour into a greased or sprayed loaf pan, and cook for 35-38 minutes. Let cool at least ten minutes before going around the sides with a knife and removing from loaf pan. As mentioned above, I used a simple glaze of the sugar-free powdered sugar mixed with a little leftover coconut milk. But my absolute favorite way to eat this recipe is spread with coconut butter! Store very loosely covered overnight, or cover with saran wrap and fridge for a few days. This cake/loaf tastes even better the longer it sits, because it keeps getting sweeter! This recipe freezes well.
Have you ever been to Hawaii?
Or any tropical location? We visited Hawaii a lot when I was little, because it was a good connecting point between Japan (where we lived) and the US. My other favorite tropical location is Thailand… one of the best things about these tropical locations is the plethora of tropical fruits, especially coconut! Side note: I also have a tab just for coconut recipes:
Link Of The Day:
Hi katie,
What did you do before this became your full time job? Did you study food or go to uni? I’m thinking of doing a career change into food but am not sure how to go about it, or test it out. How do you earn an income from a blog? Sorry, so many questions, I’m just ultra curious and really inspired by your blog, I love how you make food exciting by using ingredients that no one would ever guess.
Thank you Katie,
My FAVORITE junk foods are ANYTHING chocolate, cinnamon rolls, and pasta, pasta, pasta! Since I am severely lactose intolerant, I have had to research to be able to eat well, and to “fool” 🙂 my family with certain substitutions. I LOVE this website, and plan to ejoy many of the recipes. Thanks Katie!!!
Thank you for the healthy recipes and tips. We have been ‘health food nuts’ for many years and raised our 7 children with healthy and fresh fruits and veggies – some from our garden and I made bread with honey etc. when they were all younger. Four of my daughters are married and because of different heath issues with their children and husbands, they have tried vegan and guten/ dairy free. They keep trying new recipes to please the taste of their family. The other daughter will graduate from nursing school in May and my youngest is studying nutrition in college.
My favorite junk food is still store bought ice cream with a brownie and cup of coffee. Oh doesn’t that just sound good. Thanks again ejo
This is soooo good!! Thank you for all of your great recipes!!
I loved this. I added a little hempseed to the mix, coconut oil and almond milk instead of full fat coconut milk, I didn’t have any. It was perfect! Thank you.
I just made this using mandarin oranges instead of pineapple and it worked marvelously! I mixed in some shaved coconut and also sprinkled some on top. Yum!
I made the Coconut breakfast cake and it was SO Good! I could have eaten the whole loaf by myself! I thought it was plenty sweet enough without the glaze.
Does anyone know if you can replace the ener-g or ground flax with a normal egg? I’m making this for my non-vegan mom for Mother’s Day, yum 🙂
Katie,
I tried finding the answer to my question before posting this but there are too many to scroll through!
Can I substitute spelt flour for almond or coconut flour? I have heard that almond and coconut makes things extra crumbly. I am not sure if this is true or not, but I thought I might just add a little extra Ener-G to counteract it?
Thanks,
Eileen
Hi Katie,
Almond meal/flour WILL NOT WORK on its own!
I attempted making the coconut cake for tomorrow morning. We are hosting a birthday breakfast for my brother and his mother in law. Also, I doubled the recipe. I was talked into trying almond meal at Central Market by a foodie, even though the stuff looked too crumbly to work. I bought the portion I needed from the bulk section, but the Baggie they sell for $10 in the section with bagged flours say “almond meal/flour” on the bag.
After baking for 38 minutes, the cake was still batter.
I would recommend to anyone who wants to try almond meal/flour in this recipe to do make 1/4 almond and maybe 3/4 cup either spelt, regular flour or maybe coconut flour. I’ve been wanting to try coconut, but haven’t yet. Or better yet, just ask Katie!
I pulled them out of the oven, mixed in wheat flour, put it back in for 25 min and glazed as per Katie’s instructions.
Surprisingly, they still came out wonderful despite having 1 cup of almond meal/flour and 1 cup regular (maybe just a little thicker).
AMAZING!! will definatly be making this again!!:)