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Looking for something different than your regular banana or chocolate bread? You will be served here. Introducing Pandan Coconut Bread! This bread features pandan leaves!
Pandan leaves add a delicious flavor and aroma to this bread. It’s a bit difficult to describe what pandan smells/tastes like as it’s quite unique. It has a nutty and herbal aroma with undertones of almonds. I know that the first time I tried it, I loved it!
I went with fresh pandan leaves here. Usually, it can be found in Asian stores. If you don’t have access to it, feel free to use pandan extract, it’s not as natural, but it’s a good alternative.
We start by blending the liquid ingredients with the pandan leaves: coconut milk for flavor and richness, maple syrup to sweeten, and some oil to make the bread moister. Once smooth, the liquid will have taken a light green color. At this point, I recommend you let it sit for 5-10 minutes so it can soak up the flavors of the leaves.
Next, strain to remove the pandan leaves pulp and discard. We now have our pandan-flavored liquid mixture!
To keep this bread gluten-free, I combined a mix of different flours: almond flour, rice flour, and buckwheat flour. Combining these three flours gives the bread a soft, non-grainy texture. Slicing and holding together well is easy without adding flax egg or applesauce.
After 30 minutes in the oven, you will end up with bright green pandan bread! I can’t describe how good your kitchen will smell, especially if you like pandan!
Make sure you don’t overbake the bread. You still want it soft and moist and not too golden brown on the edges.
Finally, brush the top of the bread with maple syrup and top with shredded coconut. The maple syrup will help the coconut stick to the bread and make it slightly moister.
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Pandan Coconut Bread (Vegan + GF)
Ingredients
- 1 cup full-fat coconut milk
- 1/2 cup maple syrup
- 1/3 cup neutral oil or melted coconut oil
- 2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk
- 4 large pandan leaves
- 1 cup almond flour
- 3/4 cup buckwheat flour
- 1/2 cup rice flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca starch
- 1 tbsp coconut sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
Instructions
- Preheat oven to
320 °F (160°C). - Add the full-fat coconut milk, maple syrup, oil, almond milk, and pandan leave to a blender. Blend on high speed for about 2 minutes. Let it sit for about 5 minutes so the liquid can absorb the flavor of the pandan leaves.
- In the meantime, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the almond flour, buckwheat flour, rice flour, tapioca starch, coconut sugar, baking powder, and baking soda.
- Strain the liquid to remove the pandan "pulp" and pour the liquid into the dry ingredients bowl. Mix using a wooden spoon until you get a smooth and thick batter.
- Pour the batter into two mini 5.75×3-inch loaf pans (or one larger one) lined with parchment paper.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the bread cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the pans.
- Brush the top of the bread with maple syrup and then sprinkle with shredded coconut.
- Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee as an afternoon snack or for breakfast! This pandan coconut bread will keep for up to 4 days and stored at room temperature.
Notes
- If you can’t find fresh pandan leaves, use 1/2 tsp pandan extract.
Nutrition
About the Author
Thomas Pagot is the founder, photographer, and recipe developer behind Full of Plants. He created the blog in 2016 as a personal cookbook for vegan recipes. Through years of recipe development, Thomas has successfully grown Full of Plants into a trusted resource for plant-based recipes.
Leave a Comment
Hey Thomas, would it be possible to sub the buckwheat flour with all purpose flour? I really hate the taste of buckwheat. I have eyed up this recipe for a long time, and even got my friend from Singapore to bring me pandan leaves all the way to Ireland when she was visiting last month! ( I can’t find pandan leaves anywhere here, even in Asian supermarkets). I so miss pandan from my South East Asia travel days! hope you can help with a suggestion. Many thanks in advance 🙂 Christina
Hi Christina,
I’m afraid I haven’t tried this recipe with all-purpose flour yet. It will probably work but you will need to adjust the amount of flour slightly (as it won’t absorb liquid the exact same way as buckwheat flour).
I’m glad you got fresh pandan leaves, I love the smell of those!
Delicious and easy. Beautifully green. Not too sweet. Thanks for a fantastic recipe.
Glad you enjoyed this pandan bread! Thanks for your feedback April 😉
My husband liked this recipe, despite the fact that I use the wrong type of buckwheat flour. It turned out the color of dark buckwheat because I did not use white buckwheat. You might want to edit the recipe to indicate that white buckwheat flour should be used
Hi Kay,
Sorry to hear you had trouble with this recipe. I will look deeper into it as here, I can only find one type of buckwheat flour, which has a light grey color.
Hi! There is an error in the recipe- 3/4 cup buckwheatflour is not 90gm! Could you please confirm which measurement to use? Thank you!
I’ve made this twice! The second time I used wayyyyy more pandan (almost a whole bag of fresh frozen), and substituted the tapioca flour and some of the buckwheat flour with a 1:1 GF flour blend (Bob’s? I think). The first time I made it it had a REALLY strong buckwheat flavor, like too much, to where the pandan barely came through, and it was not beautifully green like this. I think the issue is that the buckwheat flour I used looks nothing like yours! It is very dark and gritty. Is this a special type of buckwheat flour? It still was delicious both times, but I think the second time was a definite improvement… probably because I really like pandan, and I wanted it to be both green and very flavorful without the buckwheat being overpowering. This time it was a dark muddy green, but definitely GREEN, and it was delicious. Just sharing in case people are trying to use whatever buckwheat flour I used!
That is correct, there are two types of buckwheat flour. I have never seen the dark one but some other readers also got the wrong one.
Does 1/2 tsp just add slight pandan flavor or enough? I love pandan so I want that flavor and aroma to really be there but I don’t want to overdo it. Thoughts on how much the 1/2 tsp does?
Thank you!
It’s enough in my opinion, but if you want a nice and natural pandan aroma I would recommend using fresh leaves.
Tried this recipe but made it non-GF as I didn’t have almond flour and buckwheat flour (so I substituted these with plain flour). However, it did not turn out well! The bread turned out too be overly dense and hard.
Well, I would recommend trying the recipe with the exact ingredients next time, as completely changing the flours also changes the texture.
Hi, was wondering whether there is any alternatives for buckwheat flour? or can i add more of the other flours to substitute?
Hi,
You might want to try oat flour, although I have never tried. Since buckwheat flour makes a big part of the recipe, it’s a bit difficult to replace it without changing the ratio of the other ingredients.
Can I use a mix of almond flour + coconut flour only
In case of using melted coconut oil – I think it might solidify while blending and remain with the pulp, Is it possible to add it after straining the pandan?
I didn’t have that problem, but sure you can add it after straining!
Thank you so much for quick response. I have another question… for rice flour, are we talking about regular white rice flour, sweet white rice flour?… can it even be brown rice flour? Your bread looks so good, Im so going to try to make this. thank you so much!
I’m talking about white rice flour. I don’t recommend using brown rice flour as it will definitely change the texture of the bread and will absorb a different amount of liquid so the recipe would have to be reworked.
Looks Amazing, I’m adding comments again, it seems I put wrong email add…. 🙁
However, is there any subs for tapioca starch? I’m trying to stay away from corn, potato, tapioca starch. Also, can I use frozen pandan leaves instead of fresh, since that’s quite hard to find? Thank you in advance.
Thanks! I would try to omit and increase the rice flour by about 2 tablespoons.
Regarding the pandan leaves, sure you can use frozen!
Looks amazing.
Any alternate for tapioca starch? or can I omit? since I’m trying to stay away corn, potato or tapioca starch. Thank you,
Can you sale this please do it
Sorry I don’t!
Do you have a recommendation for An alternative to almond flour? We have nut allergies and just curious.
I’m afraid I don’t…sorry.
I made some substitutions but was tasty! I subbed buckwheat flour with sorghum flour 1:1, and my pandan leaves were frozen. I used coconut oil in this recipe and I recommend mixing it in later because it separated and got a bit chunky in my Blendtec even though it was melted at first. If I do this again I may do 1.5x the amount of leaves if frozen, and add the oil last. My maple syrup was dark and so was my coconut sugar so the bread was a bit neutral olive in color. Grateful to have come across this recipe!
Glad you still enjoyed the recipe Aluna 🙂 Thanks for your feedback and rating!
Try coconut flour or oat flour
Great recipe I cannot wait to try it. My local Asian Market has the extract but I’m going to check for the fresh leaves cuz I’m sure it would make a difference.
I love your recipes and always get excited when I see your email in my inbox keep up the good work I really appreciate it
Thanks for your kind words Julie 🙂