Coconut flour vs almond flour: fibre against fat

What the numbers say

Per 100 g, our coconut flour measures 40.7 g dietary fibre, 17.0 g protein and 13.1 g fat (lot 21111262). Almond flour typically publishes around 10 g fibre, 21 g protein and 50 g fat. Energy follows the fat: roughly 430 kcal for coconut flour, near 580 kcal for almond.

Net carbs — total carbohydrates minus fibre — land around 20 g per 100 g for coconut flour and 10 g for almond. Both sit far below wheat flour's ~73 g, which is why low-carb baking reaches for either.

The absorption rule

The single most common coconut-flour failure is treating it like wheat. All that fibre drinks liquid: recipes need noticeably more egg and moisture, and a straight 1:1 swap produces something closer to a brick than a cake.

The working rules: replace up to a quarter of the wheat flour in a familiar recipe without other changes, or use recipes written for 100% coconut flour, which already carry the extra eggs and liquid. Almond flour is more forgiving structurally but browns fast and adds oil to everything it touches.

Allergies decide for many kitchens

Almond flour is a tree-nut product — off the table for nut-allergic households and many school lunchboxes. Coconut flour is nut-free in the culinary sense and naturally gluten-free. (Anyone with a specific coconut allergy should avoid it.)

Ours has one more difference from most on the shelf: it's milled from fresh raw coconut meat, not from the defatted press cake left over after oil extraction — the reason the natural sweetness is still there.

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• Coconut sugar vs cane sugar: what GI 35 actually buys you →