This coconut flour coffee cake is a lovely soft sponge cake topped with a cinnamon-sugar streusel. It tastes best served with a cup of good coffee!
I love all types of cake but coffee cake is extra special because it’s the kind of cake that you can eat it in the morning with a cup of coffee.
This coconut flour coffee cake has all the same qualities of traditional coffee cake but without the grains and dairy.
How To Make Coconut Flour Coffee Cake
You’ll need the following ingredients for this recipe: coconut flour (you can also make your own coconut flour), eggs, cream of tartar, coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract, baking soda, coconut sugar, and salt.
In a large bowl combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Whip until stiff peaks form.
In a separate bowl, cream together maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, and coconut oil. Mix in the egg yolks. Add to the mixture, coconut flour, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Mix until combined.
Mix the batter into the egg whites starting with a little bit at a time. Continue to mix until the batter is completely combined.
Scoop the coffee cake batter into a greased loaf pan.
In a small bowl mix together all the ingredients for the topping. Spread the mixture over the batter. Swirl parts of the topping into the batter.
Bake for 30 minutes. The coconut flour coffee cake is done when a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean. Let the cake cool before slicing and serving.
If you’d like to make this recipe sugar-free, you can sub the maple syrup for lakanto maple flavored syrup and the coconut sugar for golden monk fruit sugar.
If you enjoyed this coffee cake you’ll love my coconut flour chocolate cake, keto lemon pound cake, and vanilla cake recipe.
Print
Coconut Flour Coffee Cake
This coconut flour coffee cake is a lovely soft sponge cake topped with a cinnamon-sugar streusel. It tastes best served with a cup of good coffee!
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
Cake
- 4 large eggs, room teperature separated
- 1 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 4 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/2 cup coconut flour, sifted
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/8 tsp salt
Topping
- 1/4 cup coconut palm sugar or golden monk fruit
- 2 tablespoons coconut oil
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Grease the bottom and sides of a 4×8 inch rectangular loaf pan with coconut oil.
- In a large bowl combine the egg whites and cream of tartar. Whip until stiff peaks form.
- In a seperate bowl, cream together maple syrup and coconut oil. Mix in the egg yolks.
- Add coconut flour, vanilla, apple cider vinegar, baking soda and salt to the mixture.
- Mix until combined.
- Mix the batter into the egg whites starting with a little bit at a time. Combine until the batter is completely mixed.
- Scoop the batter into the loaf pan and spread the batter evenly in the pan.
- In a small bowl mix together all the ingredients for the topping. Spread the mixture over the batter. Swirl parts of the topping into the batter.
- Bake for 30 minutes.
- The cake is done when a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean. Let the cake cool before slicing and serving.
Notes
Recipe inspired by Sunday Special Coffe Cake recipe from the book, Indulge.
Nutrition info based on using maple syrup and coconut sugar. With sugar substitutes there are 3g carbs, 1.5g fiber, and only 1.6g net carbs per serving.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 274
- Sugar: 13g
- Fat: 22
- Carbohydrates: 16g
- Fiber: 1.5g
- Protein: 4g
This recipe was originally published on July 3, 2013, and was updated on February 13, 2020.
Links on this page may be affiliate links, for which the site earns a small commission, but the price for you is the same
very nice recipe
It looks yum..
thaks for sharing
Thanks for the this lovely cake idea..
I tried out cake with the above recipe. The cake was very soft and tasty. Thank you.
Can I use Stevie for the sweetener. I also have Stevie mixed with erythritol. I bought the ery. to try but I really don’t care for the taste. I tried it in my ice tea and it makes it tasteless almost.
Made it this morning, VERY GOOD!! Looked exactly like the picture. I even took a picture it was so pretty.
Great texture, mild flavor. Hubby was okay with it, he was expecting his favorite wheat & sugar version of coffee cake, but said this wasn’t bad. Filling and satisfying.
Sift your coconut flour before measuring, have all your steps ready to go before putting it together (Mix all the dry ingredients, measure the wet ingredients and have mixed, and then whip the egg whites) so you can put it together quickly. You won’t be sorry.
Yummie!
I just made this! I think it’s the first time I’ve cooked with coconut flour and it didn’t end badly. 🙂 It had the fluffy cake texture, and wasn’t at all dry. Thanks for this recipe; I’ll be making it again.
hi can i use runny honey? thanks
I’ve never seen a coconut flour recipe that wants you to whip the egg whites. I wonder if that will be what makes the difference in this cake. I bought so much coconut flour,( I better get a cooking) I’ve noticed it can be very dry, or just to eggy, tasting. My son’s been bugging me for a coffee cake, I’m dying to know how the end result will be, everyone seems happy. I’m gonna have to sub lemon juice for cream of tartar, I’ve done that before, it works just fine. Well, wish me luck girls, I’m gonna give it a go. Thank You.
I didn’t taste the egg whites at all. 🙂
“Coconut Babies” How cute I love that baby smell, but they should make a coconut flavored baby powder or baby lotion. A beach baby!
ThankYou!
you saved our solstice!
I got sick and found I could not eat any grain (or legumes or dairy or . . . well those were the main ones ruining baking) and we were having a crisis about holiday breakfast coffee cake. this looked sort of like our traditional recipe, so my partner decided to give it a try. we couldn’t get to stiff peaks and she thinks she may have miscalculated on the dimensions of a different shaped pan, which was glass, and adjusting time and temp, but it was still wonderful. either it is a very forgiving recipe or it is off the chart when done right.
her first forays into coconut flour baking had not gone well so she was nervous and decided to make it well in advance of our travel date and freeze it if it looked ok but have time for something else if it failed. if anyone is wondering, it withstood that just fine, though some topping fell off. (adding nuts and reducing sugar (you don’t want to know how little sweet I can have) is probably to blame for that.) scooped it up and sprinkled it back on. looked fine. tasted great.
between the potential overbaking and the freezing and the past coconut flour experience we were braced for it to be dry so had coconut butter (me) and cream cheese (her) standing at the ready, but it really wasn’t needed.
thank you again. we can’t wait to try some of your other recipes!
Suggestions for egg free version? I was so excited to see a grain free and almond free recipe due to allergies but I am also allergic to eggs.
I want to try this, but only have 1 egg on hand…can I sub in flax eggs?
Terrible! Mine looked nothing like photo. Flat, dry, crumbly, bland, too strongly coconut flour tasting. Added butter and maple syrup when eating which helped, but bleh overall.
How long did you whip the eggs, and did you use a 4×8 pan?
I made this recipe as I wanted to make a gluten-free coffee cake and only had coconut flour on hand. My batter was a little dry, so I compensated by adding natural (non sweetened) applesauce with just a few tablespoons and used 1:1 ratio swapping out the honey for coconut palm sugar. The batter was moist but not pourable into the pan. It’s in the oven right now so fingers crossed that it turns out! Great recipe though!
I tried this and it just didn’t work out for me or the family. I will say my Mother-in-law says she loves it though..
I just made this and is so good. But wasn’t even half as high as the picture….
Are there any substitute for the eggs…I’m allergic
I’ve read that you can use chickpea brine in place of egg whites for recipes where you need to whip up something like a meringue. I’ve never tried it, though.
If you Google “vegan egg yolk replacements,” you can find a list of substitutes for that. Again, I haven’t tried either, but they’re possibilities. Please let me know if you try, and how it turns out!
This cake is delicious, but one huge question no one else has asked… why is it called coffee cake when there is no coffee in it?!! It’s cinnamon cake! I really wanted a recipe for coffee cake – do you have one?
because it’s traditionally been a mildly sweet cake served with coffee. 🙂
Do you sift, then measure the coconut flour or measure then sift? Thanks. This looks great. Can’t wait to try it!
I’m wondering this as well, but I’m thinking the safest option is sift then measure.
Any alternative to the eggs in this recipe? applesauce or gelatin egg? Thanks!
I just made the coffee cake this morning, the batter was very dense, it didn’t look like your typical batter! how much should this have risen while baking. It was very cocoanut taste. I could not taste the topping at all. Any suggestions???
My husband did like the coffee cake!!!
I made this today – without the streusel topping, just dumped all the batter in my pan. It was a HUGE hit. Thanks for sharing the recipe… can’t wait to try it in full later 🙂
I made this for dessert for Easter dinner and it was great! This recipe is definitely a keeper.
My hubby is a coffee cake nut so I plan on making your coffee cake this wkend. I’ll bake it in mini loaf pans. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
I’m not sure if I did something wrong but this just didn’t taste good at all. It had a sharp taste (not sure how else to describe this). Didn’t taste sweet enough (and I don’t eat a lot of sweet things) and I found the topping flavour was too intense. I hope others have a better experience.
ONLY 1/2 CUP OF FLOUR? ARE YOU SURE THIS IS CORRECT?
It’s not a 1/2c of flour, it’s a 1/2c of coconut flour, two completely different products with different behaviors. 1/2c coconut flour would be about the equivalent of 1 1/2-2c wheat flour 🙂
I’m not sure what I did wrong. My coconut oil, honey, egg yolks, coconut flour mix was almost solid. It would sit in a block on my spatula. There was no traditional folding and definitely no pouring into the pan. Anyone else have this problem?
Try melting the coconut oil first. Coconut oil is solid at temperatures below 70. Coconut flour also has incredible absorbing powers so depending on where you bought it and where you live (humidity), you might have to add some water or your choice of milk to smooth it out. I haven’t made this particular recipe, but coconut flour goods tend to look very different from “normal” batters pre baking. Good luck!
this looks so good! officially my favourite website! will make a batch over the next couple of days for our 6 hour road trip this weekend. thank you muchly for the recipe!
@leigh-i try not to eat sugar either but i will make an exception for coconut sugar. it has the loweset glycemic index of all natural sweeteners so when i do want an “occasional” treat i will make something from scratch. The recipe is a perfect example of something i will try! ALL sugar free sweeteners are bad for you and do far worse damage than sugar itself. I urge to to research it. The only other sweeteners i will allow is raw honey and maple syrup (organic only for all three), though i use them rarely.
Thank-you, so nice to see a recipe with normal ingredients that I can get from my pantry!!
Can the coconut oil be substituted for something else? Maybe butter but would it still be 1/4 cup? I really need to buy some coconut oil but its so pricey. I also don’t eat sugar and I’m wondering if my sugar free honey would work or it the raw honey adds something to the texture. What’s your opinion?
There is no such thing as sugar free honey. It’s not honey then.
In the paleo diet, only natural sugars, like the sugars in most fruit, are allowed because they aren’t processed. To know if your honey has any added processed sugars, check how many grams of sugar it contains in the nutrition facts (usually below the carbs) and if it has any, which honey should, you would be able to go through all the ingredients without seeing the word sugar. If you do, it’s added in and not natural. If there isn’t sugar in the ingredients then all the sugars in the nutrition facts are natural. To keep this a paleo desert/breakfast, use an organic honey that doesn’t have any added sugar. As for the butter, you could probably use it, but, again to keep it paleo, use grass fed, organic butter. I recommend the brand Kerrygold. Hope I helped and didn’t seem to know-it-all haha(:
I often switch out fats when cooking and baking. I use a 1 for 1 substitution. Butter should work just fine. Lard is also nice for things like this. Replacing the honey gets a little trickier, since it adds a touch of liquid as well as sweetness.
i am wondering if you could use dates as a sweetener? They are quite moist (if you are worried about the moisture in the honey) and there is added fiber.
If you are eating “sugar free” honey…I would look for ingredients. If it doesn’t say HONEY and only honey…..well….it has to be some kind of processed fake food. Where do you get “sugar free” honey and why?
I made your recipe for this scrumptious looking cake this morning to take on our trip to Idaho! it turned out perfectly and looks great. I couldn’t resist a few bites before packing and I can’t wait for Britt to get to have such a yummy treat 🙂 Thank You!
Oh, my goodness! I just made this to bring to a 4th of July party. Absolutely lovely! You would be hard-pressed to know that this cake is grain-free. I suspect that my plate will be empty in short order.
I thought I had ruined the recipe. The egg yolk mixture set up into a stiff paste while I was preparing the egg whites (I did the steps with the whites and the yolks out of order). However, it mixed in just fine – whew! I was unsure about whether to mix or fold in the yolks, as I didn’t want to stir the air back out of the whites. In the end, I mixed as gently as possible. The volume of the whites went down significantly, but I guess that is ok – coffee cakes tend to be on the denser side.
Because I had some on hand, I added blueberries to the batter.
I was curious about the folding verses mixing too. The volume of my whites went down a lot. Coffee cake is in the oven right now. The house smells divine!
Sounds so good!!!
Looks perfectly scrumptious!