Coconut Flour Orange Cake With Coconut Oil Frosting (GFCF)
ETA: Organic mandarin oranges are in season through December! Find them here with free shipping for a limited time.
Oranges. Lovely, sweet, fragrant oranges. After not buying any fresh produce for a month and a half I bought about three pounds of these organic lovelies on Sunday. We ate one shortly after arriving home from the grocery store and it was so refreshing that I instantly thought "cake!"
I have been trying to get more coconut products into my diet for many reasons. First of all it’s so healthy for me, especially since I am still nursing. All of those great medium chain fatty acids are great coming through breast milk for my baby. Secondly, it’s a great help for losing those post-pregnancy pounds without going on a restrictive diet while nursing.
This cake is both refreshing and nourishing. I’ve used coconut from three different sources – the flour, the milk and the oil – all very nourishing. I never really liked coconut until I realized how good it was for me. Now I don’t mind the flavor as much, especially since I know I’m nourishing myself when I eat it. This cake is lovely in that the orange flavor predominates the coconut flavor. This gives you bright orange flavor without too much of the coconut. The two different sweeteners – raw honey & stevia – also help bring the sugar count down in the overall dessert. Finally, this cake is both gluten free and casein free for those of you who are trying to avoid these things. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Coconut Flour Orange Cake (gfcf)
Recipe notes: I give you a method for melting the coconut oil while greasing the pan, saving you a dish. You can certainly melt the coconut oil in one pan and grease the pan separately. Also, I add the coconut oil last just in case it is still pretty warm. Having the eggs already mixed with the other ingredients provides a bit of a buffer in case the oil is still too warm. Scrambled egg cake is not what we’re after here.
Ingredients
- 6 eggs
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1/4 cup coconut milk
- 6 Tablespoons raw honey
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon orange zest
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (aluminum free)
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- juice of 1/2 medium orange
Directions
- Take your eggs out of your refrigerator and allow them to come to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Measure out coconut oil and place in an 8"x8" pan. Place the pan in the oven to melt the coconut oil.
- While the coconut oil is melting, whisk the eggs, coconut milk, honey, vanilla and orange zest together. Once the coconut oil is melted (probably around five minutes or less), remove the pan from the oven and let it cool while you mix in the rest of your ingredients.
- Combine coconut flour, baking powder and sea salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet. Once your pan is cooled enough to handle, carefully swirl your coconut oil around your pan in order to grease all sides. Then pour the coconut oil into the batter and mix until all lumps are gone.
- Pour the batter into your greased pan and place on the middle rack of the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until browned on top and a toothpick comes out clean.Place the cake on a cooling rack. After the cake has cooled a bit, but is still warm, poke holes all over the top with a fork. Juice the orange half right over the whole cake, making sure to evenly distribute the juice.
Orange Coconut Oil Frosting (gfcf)
Recipe notes: Be sure to melt your coconut oil in a glass bowl. I do this by putting the bowl over a small pan of simmering water.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted in a glass bowl
- 9 drops of liquid stevia (alternatively, you could use a couple of teaspoons of raw honey)
- 1 packed teaspoon orange zest
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
Directions
- Mix all ingredients into warm coconut oil. You are now going to place the bowl into the freezer in order to cool it down. It is very important to check on it every couple of minutes to catch it before it gets too cold. You want to take it out of the freezer right when it starts to get cloudy.
- At this point the cold bowl (and your cool kitchen) will continue to turn the liquid oil into a solid. Continue to whisk the frosting as it gets cloudier and cloudier and eventually turns into a whipped butter consistency. The idea is to get a bit of air into it. Once it is to a whipped (very soft) butter consistency plop it onto your cooled cake. Frost it very quickly before the coconut oil hardens. It will seem like a pretty thin layer of frosting, but it is just enough.
This recipe is a contribution to Stephanie’s Healthy Sweets Carnival.
That cake looks gorgeous! I love the lightness of a citrus flavored cake and this one sure fits the bill – with all the benefit of coconut added in!
Your frosting recipe is intriguing . . . basically making a form of a buttercream without butter. Or, you know, sugar. When I read the ingredients, I immediately had to go back and look at the picture of the completed cake and I was stunned! Gorgeous and oh so creamy! I haven’t seen that before! What a great recipe to share!
Thank you!
Best,
Sarah
Hi! I found this through the carnival….Thanks for the recipes…I can’t wait to try it…we are dairy free at present here….I am too nursing and baby can’t have dairy…and we are doing a lot of coconut….so your recipes fit perfect…Thank you…
Jessica O.
This sounds so good! I may need to request this for my birthday cake this year! 🙂 Thanks!
Michele
This looks delicious…and I have all the ingredients! Thanks for sharing.
not a huge fan of coconut either but I’m willing to give it a try.
Oh wow! I’m going to try this later in the week, and if it works, I’ll make it for Christmas.
I bet a lemon version would be tasty, too!
That sounds really good. I need to make a birthday cake this weekend, so I think I’ll try a lemon version, since I have a few of those. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Thanks for taking the time to share the recipe!
This recipe looks awesome. I wanted to ask you: Do you use extra virgin raw organic coconut oil? That is the only kind that I use, but I find it so expensive to use a whole bunch of it for an icing. I’d love to know where you get yours and what kind you use?
This looks delicious. Where do you get your coconut flour. Looking forward to browsing around your blog more!
Oh my gosh, this looks gooood! Added to my growing list of things to bake after Christmas. So good to see more recipes with coco flour. Beautiful site!
Lauren – I’m glad you like it :).
Wow, I can’t wait to get my coconut flour to try this recipe. Just an FYI for anyone interested, I found organic virgin coconut oil and coconut flour on ebay being sold by Tropical TRaditions. I visited their website first and the prices on ebay are MUCH cheaper. That is how I get my coconut products. Thanks for the great recipes.
Lord Bless!
Susan
Thank You! I made this and it was great. Your dairy free & healthful coconut icing is pure genius! It was fun to make. That icing recipe is also a great way to get your daily coconut oil down pleasantly!
Oh, wow, I finally tried this today, wonderful! Thanks again.
Thanks for the recipe! The cake was delicious. Because I love the taste of coconut, I added a 2/3 cup of unsweetened coconut flakes, and I also used the entire (tiny) orange’s juice to balance the extra coconut.
This cake is spectacular. I made it last night, substituting lemon extract for the orange. And I made cupcakes instead of using an 8×8 pan. I’m absolutely addicted!
This is great! I’ve been looking for the perfect cake for my daughter’s birthday party. Almond flour has been used over, and over for my baking. I wanted to try something different. I’m very excited to make this cake, and frosting at home! Thanks a bunch!
Coconut flour and orange? It sounds heavenly =D.
I’ve been following your blog for sometime, but realized I haven’t said “hello!”. Sorry about that! The cake looks fantastic! Found it through Elana’s Pantry.
So, we are going to be working together through Real Food Media… I’m thrilled!
This looks delicious – I’ve been thinking about a coconut/orange flavored cake too!
That cake looks so wonderful! Perfect texture, and I love orange and coconut together 🙂
This cake looks great and so does this website. I’ll definately be checking back by!
This looks good. How was the icing, did it have that familiar icing-y texture? It looks fabulous. I love using stevia in my cooking too.
hi there,
had a bit of trouble with this cake, I only have a fan forced oven and the outside went very brown and the centre was still soft. I love coconut flour however I find it very hard to cook in the oven without going very brown on the outside… I do all the things like put on bottom shelf, keep oven clean to keep temperature even… any advice much appreciated
Anything with coconut milk and definitely coconute oil is a gluten free winner! This must have worked well
Love this fabulous cake, thanks for the great post!
http://heal-balance-live.blogspot.com/2010/01/recipe-review-coconut-flour-orange-cake.html
I made this cake just now, the batter tasted delicious and I’m excited to try it. However, it did not rise hardly at all and I’m wondering why? Yours in the picture looks so…cake like, mine looks a little sad 🙁 Any advice?
Mario – I should probably add to the recipe that the photo is deceiving and the final product is only about 2 inches tall. Maybe your eggs didn’t help with the raising. Were they room temperature?
Just made the cake last night and we love it. Thank you for sharing all these wonderful coconut flour recipes.
This cake looks fabulous! I want to try making it tomorrow but am curious as to what kind of orange you used, was it a mandarin orange or do you think navel or regular oranges would work nicely too?
Catherine – I think either type of oranges would work fine :).
Thanks so much for sharing your recipe! 🙂
Do you know how many calories per serving this is?
Ty – Sorry, but no. You could plug the recipe into a calorie calculator and divide it by servings though.
Hi, I just made this cake – the flavour is beautiful but I’ve ended up with a very eggy base on the cake. Do you have any idea why? Is it not blended well enough or would it be my oven? I have an old gas oven that is not fan forced. I have to cook everything on very low or it burns the outside and doesn’t cook the inside. I used a Kenwood Chef with the K-beater to mix it. Thanks, Filippa
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cartuse
Yum! I’ll be making this for my daughter’s 1st birthday:) Thanks, Shannon!
This looks amazing! I’ve been searching for gluten free baking recipes, I can’t wait to try it out. Any suggestions on how to adjust this recipe accordingly for high altitude baking?
We’re on GAPS and looking for a good cake to make for my 3 year old’s birthday party. Does this still taste good without the orange? I’m allergic to oranges (all citrus) and want to make just one cake. Thanks for any feedback!
That’s an ingneouis way of thinking about it.