Using coconut flour to make baked goods results in a consistency similar to Sara Lee pound cake. When I was in grade school, my breakfast was sometimes a slice of Sara Lee pound cake topped with peanut butter. Not an ideal healthy breakfast, by any means. But, I do have a soft spot for the soft, spongy texture of pound cake even to this day!
If you love pound cake as I do, chances are you will like this honey bread. It is a wonderful alternative to the typical wheat based pound cakes. This honey bread recipe does have a hint of coconut flavor, but it is not overwhelming and does not detract from complete enjoyment of the texture and overall flavor of the bread.
This honey bread does not get completely brown on top like wheat based pound cake, but the texture is quite similar. This bread is also very low carb and unbelievably filling for those of you who are limiting them for health or weight reasons. It’s amazing how just one slice fills you up.
Note that when I originally created and published this recipe, I used honey as the sweetener. Since that time back in 2010, I’ve learned via research that it is not ideal nor is it traditional to use honey for cooking or baking. However, after retesting, I found that honey still makes for the tastiest loaf. If you make this bread a lot, I recommend using date syrup instead which is Paleo and also allowed on the GAPS, AIP or Specific Carbohydrate healing diets. If you are not on one of these diets, then maple syrup makes a wonderful substitute too. It does slightly change the taste of the loaf, however.
I LOVE a slice of this honey bread with some healthy peanut butter on top (this is our favorite brand). My husband and kids like a slice with a big slab of butter and a bit of raw honey.
Paleo Honey Bread Recipe
Easy recipe for grain free, Paleo honey bread that tastes just like Sara Lee pound cake without all the carbs and sugar.
Ingredients
- 6 eggs preferably pastured or free range
- 5 Tbl butter melted, preferably grassfed
- 6 Tbl coconut milk or whole dairy milk
- 6 Tbl raw honey
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup coconut flour sifted
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 5 drops stevia extract
Instructions
Whisk together eggs, butter, coconut milk, honey, sea salt, vanilla, and stevia.
Mix coconut flour and baking powder in a separate bowl and then sprinkle this dry mixture in with the wet ingredients a bit at a time.
Once everything is mixed, keep whisking until the batter is very smooth with no lumps. This may take a few minutes.
Pour into a glass loaf pan and bake at 400 F/204 C for 20-25 minutes or until loaf starts to slightly brown on top.
This recipe makes 1 medium honey bread loaf, 12 muffins, or 24 mini muffins. Cover leftovers on the counter and refrigerate what you won't eat in 2 days in a sealed container.
Recipe Notes
Use date syrup instead of honey if you wish to refrain from cooking with honey, which is not an ideal practice.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Nature’s Best Mosquito Control
This looks great. So many times, when I see "grain free" it ends up being a recipe using rice flour or millet flour, whatever. Those are too high in carbs for me to eat, but this will fit the bill. Thanks for sharing.
My wife is allergic to honey, what would you recommend to use instead?
Wow, that's a tough one as honey is the easiest sugar to digest as it is a monosaccharide in natural form. It is also the only sweetener recommended on the GAPS diet which is the best diet for anyone with allergies to be on if they seek healing from this condition. Maple syrup (grade B) would probably work fine, but this sweetener is a disaccharide and as such, is harder to digest for folks with gut dysbiosis – which anyone with allergies has. I think I've seen glucose for sale in the sweetener section of healthfood stores before; this would be a good option as it would be a monosaccharide .. not in natural form like honey, but still better than a disaccharide sweetener, I think.
I made the bread today. Wow! Is that ever good. It is definitely more like a breakfast type bread or even a desert bread. It was a winner in this household and I love the good protein. With my coconut flour pancakes and this bread, I definitely have some great choices. We love to have breakfast for supper. Come to think of it, I wonder how the bread would work as french toast? 🙂
Thanks Sarah. I hope you keep them coming.
I am *not* a stevia fan….yuck! What's your recommendation for a substitute?
Jenny, you may leave out the stevia. I should have put **optional** by it in the recipe. Feel free to add a tad more honey to the recipe instead but you may find the honey listed in the recipe is sufficient for you.
Thanks Sarah, She ended up hospitalized and the doctors thought she had a stroke. She ended up figuring it out on her own that she was allergic to honey. Now whenever she eats it (even in SMALL doses) she gets headaches and if she consumes to much, one side of her face gets numb. Very scary. We will try the glucose or the maple syrup. Thanks
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Everyone in the family LOVED this!!! Thanks, and do you have other recipes, maybe something chocolate? Debi Hickson
Hello Sarah,I was wondering if you could please do a post on a sample menu of what a 60% fat diet looks like? Thank you,
Gaby from True Blessings
Ok, Debi. Chocolate it is! I will post a recipe that makes use of some organic cocoa for Real Food Wednesday next week.
Hi Gaby,
Here is a link to the 3 day food logs for the WAPF Board Members. Several of these folks consume 60%+ fat each day. I hope you find it helpful!
I made this bread for my family for strawberry shortcake. We love it! The only problem for me was that the bottom was moist almost like flan and the top more like cake in our trial run. The second batch was better, I think my daughter added less milk the second time. It was a hit with my mother in law!
Sarah, I made this bread today and loved it! I do not have stevia but found it to be sweet enough w/ just the honey. I did have one problem. It barely rose at all. Was only about 2" high, if that. Any ideas why this may have happened?
Hi Dawn, this type of bread doesn't rise much if at all. If you find it too thin, then just bake in a smaller pan.
I made this and it rose beautifully, moist, beautiful texture. WONDERFUL!!! We started eating it warm right from the oven! It tastes EXACTLY like Sarah Lee Pound Cake! We tried to not eat the whole thing at one sitting – it was hard! I will serve this to guests as a desert! Thinking about adding cocoa to it next time. THANK YOU!!!
This recipe sounds great, and I plan to try it. But, I wanted to mention, as someone who followed the SCD strictly for almost two year, there are a couple of ingredients that are not SCD legal. The stevia and baking powder are not allowed when following the SCD.
Hi Melissa, you are absolutely right – thank you for pointing this out. These ingredients can be left out for folks on an extremely strict interpretation of GAPS or SCD. Some folks heal enough after a few months to be able to eat these but must still be off grains.
I think it may be a good idea to soak the coconut flour first. Have you tried this? I've been following the extensive series of posts on soaking and sprouting on The Nourishing Gourmet blog, and the comments say that Sally Fallon recommends soaking coconut flour.
Thanks for this delicious recipe — I look forward to making it!
-Beth
Sarah, I just was reading over at Kimi Harris' blog (nourishing gourmet) that one is supposed to soak coconut flour as well, as it technically is from a seed and contains the same antinutrient properties as other seeds. I was so disappointed to hear this as I had been using coconut flour as my "last minute, I didn't soak anything last night" type breakfast solution. What are your thoughts on soaking coconut flour?
Sarah Faith, I do not soak my coconut flour because of this statement from "Living with Phytic Acid" by Rami Nagel (article in Wise Traditions Journal from March 2010 – until there is more information on this, I am choosing to not soak:
PREPARATION OF COCONUT FLOUR
We do not have enough information about the preparation of coconut flour to say whether soaking reduces phytic acid, but as with other phytic-acid containing foods, the likelihood is that it is at least partially reduced.