If you have dietary oxalate issues (pain, anxiety, insomnia, restless legs, hearing loss, eye issues, unresolved thyroid issues, bladder issues and more) and yet really miss the occasional muffin this Coconut Macaroon Mini Muffin recipe is a delicious low oxalate option. I see way too many so-called healthy gluten-free recipes that use almond flour and it’s concerning given that almonds are high oxalate foods. If you’re new to the dietary oxalate issues you can read more about this below. I’m finding it to be underappreciated as an issue especially in menopausal women when symptoms seem to be more severe in susceptible individuals. I have also found that using almond flour in baking affects your zinc/copper balance, increasing copper and hence causing more anxiety and even panic attacks.
If you don’t have dietary oxalate issues, you can certainly enjoy this recipe too. The addition of flaked coconut does make it similar to macaroons.
Coconut Macaroon Mini Muffin recipe (a low oxalate option)
Ingredients
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup coconut sugar
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sifted coconut flour
2 cups coconut flakes
Method
Melt the butter over low heat and add the coconut sugar. Once it’s cooled add the eggs and vanilla. Stir in the coconut flour and coconut flakes.
Spoon the mixture into a greased mini muffin pan. Bake at 375 degrees F/ 190 degrees C for 18 – 20 minutes. The muffins don’t rise at all but will start to turn golden brown. Remove and cool on a cooking rack. Makes 12 mini muffins.
Eat warm or when cooled. Serve with butter and/or cream and/or coconut butter. For a little added sweetness a small amount of raw honey can be spread on a muffin too.
I adapted this recipe from the Coconut Butter Cookies recipe in “Cooking with Coconut Flour” by Bruce Fife ND. I pretty much always do this when I cook – adapt recipes to my needs and likes – and always reduce the sugar. In this instance, I halved the sugar and used coconut sugar.
The original recipe does have a reduced sugar option suggesting using ½ cup of sugar and adding ¼ teaspoon stevia. I’d find this too sweet.
I decided to cook them in mini muffin pans instead of making cookies on a baking tray but you could always try this option. Use the same temperature and cooking time per the original recipe.
They were a little dry (next time I’ll use a little extra butter in the recipe) but eating them with butter and/or cream made them delicious. I tried both – I always like to include some healthy fats. If dairy isn’t tolerated, coconut cream could be substituted. I suspect coconut oil could be substituted for the melted butter but have not tried it.
Here is “Cooking with Coconut Flour” by Bruce Fife ND. You can find it on Amazon here (my link). I’ve baked a number of recipes from this book and I’m impressed. I really appreciate that it’s all coconut flour recipes with no almond flour or other gluten-free flours used.
It’s ideal to keep baked goods – especially the ones shown on the cover of this book – to a minimum. But for an occasional treat this recipe book is excellent.
If you’re new to dietary oxalates as a possible issue
This blog post is a helpful one to start with if you’re new to dietary oxalates and the issues they can cause: Oxalate crystal disease, dietary oxalates and pain: the research & questions
These are the common medium-oxalate and high-oxalate foods that many folks have problems with: nuts, nut-butters and nut-flour (especially baking with almond flour and something to watch when eating Paleo or GAPS), wheat, chocolate, kiwi fruit (very high – see the raphides image on the above blog), star fruit (also very high), beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, legumes, raspberries, spinach and soy.
In the above blog post, I share an overview of oxalates, my pain issues with dietary oxalates (severe foot pain and eye pain), and deeper dive into the condition called oxalate crystal disease (with some of my insights and questions).
The big take-aways are that calcium oxalate crystals are sharp and can cause far reaching harm beyond pain – such as unresolved anxiety, thyroid issues, neurological symptoms, eye issues, hearing loss, bladder issues, headaches, fatigue, insomnia, restless legs, autism symptoms and more. You can have issues with dietary oxalates and not have kidney disease/kidney stones, although there is very little research supporting the latter.
You may find these oxalate blogs helpful too:
- Increased kidney stones in postmenopausal women with lower estradiol levels. What about increased dietary oxalate issues too?
- Waking in the night due to environmental toxins: impacts on the liver, gallbladder and fat digestion (making oxalate issues worse)
- Butternut Bake recipe (a low oxalate alternative to Potato Bake)
What dietary oxalates issues have you experienced and has a low oxalate diet helped you?
Do let us know if you make this recipe and enjoy it.
Feel free to share a favorite recipe of something you’ve adapted to be low or even medium oxalate.
If you have questions and feedback please share them here too.