One of our most popular Primed recipes is our Banana Pancakes made with almond flour. They are delicious, have a great texture and are nutritious as almonds are loaded with lots of essential nutrients. However, almonds can be hard to find sometimes and are not cheap.

I had a wonderful breakfast with my friend Mae from WhenInManila where she loved my Banana Pancakes but I decided to use coconut flour next time we so we could try something different.

Coconut flour is easy to make and inexpensive. The price per pancake is less than 5 pesos. Coconut flour also has many health benefits as it has 5 grams of fiber per 2 tablespoons and by adding coconut flour it lowers the glycemic index (a measure of the rate that a food increases blood sugar) of the dishes to which it is added.

Where to Get Your Ground Coconut

We go to Guadalupe market or Shop Wise and ask them to grind out the coconut meat from 3 coconuts (31 pesos each). Mature coconut meat is called (niyog) in Tagalog.

Once we bring the ground out coconut meat home I then run boiled water over the coconut through a sieve (see below).

After running the boiled water through the grated coconut meat in the sieve I squeeze out the liquid into the bowl (creating coconut milk and cream to be used later in many types of dishes and/or smoothies) and spread the damp coconut onto a tray (see below). This then goes into the oven set at 200 degrees celsius.

Once in the oven you just need to check on it and stir it every 15 minutes or so for approximately one hour. This allows the coconut to dry out and create your desiccated coconut.

After the desiccated coconut has dried out you then have a couple of options with what to do with it. You can freeze it straight away (it will not last in the fridge more than a day or so because there are no preservatives) or you can then grind it down in a small grinder (see picture below) to make your coconut flour.

Banana Pancakes with Home-Made Coconut Flour

Simply check out our Banana Pancakes with Almond Flour and substitute the almond flour with coconut flour. Once mixing the eggs with the mashed banana add your coconut flour. You are seeking a consistency where the mixture is not runny but not too thick either. Practice will make perfect so don’t worry if you have some non-perfect pancakes along the way. You could even have a mixture of almond and coconut flour.

Additional Uses for Coconut Flour and Desiccated Cococnut

You can use coconut cream in our Pink Fruit Smoothies as well as our Primed Mousse.

I will also post some recipes including coconut flour over the next few months on how to make delicious and inexpensive meals for a Primed Lifestyle such as Desiccated Coconut Kadisnon Banana Snack, Primed Tuna and Squash Patties and Chocolate Coconut Cake with Berries.

Primed for your Life have a mission to promote Filipino products and quality local businesses. We love using all things coconut and are looking forward to sharing more with you in our future posts.

Please feel free to leave your comments with us as Chef Cyrille and I would be very glad to hear from you.