Coconut Oil Is Key to These 18 Dessert Recipes

Banana Bread

Oil's a common ingredient in quick breads, but switching from liquid oils such as canola to solid coconut oil gives my banana bread a lingering richness that's hard to beat. To use coconut oil as a replacement for liquid oil in other quick breads, all you have to do is melt it down. As the coconut oil cools, you may notice the batter is thicker than usual, but this won't cause any ill effects (in fact, it will encourage the quick bread to crown in the oven, a rather beautiful touch).

Homemade Brownie Mix

Because refined coconut oil is odorless, flavorless, and solid at room temperature, with a shelf-life of more than a year, it's the perfect foundation for homemade brownie mix. Keep a jar on the shelf, and when you're ready to bake simply add eggs, water, and vanilla. The results are as chewy as any store bought brownie, and just as glossy, but with the deep, complex flavor of top notch Dutch cocoa and dark chocolate.

Lemon Blueberry Scones

Thanks to its neutral flavor, refined coconut oil makes a fantastic replacement for butter in recipes, as in this recipe for lemon blueberry scones. By taming down the toasty, brown butter flavor scones usually develop as they bake, coconut oil puts the spotlight on the the bright flavor of fresh fruit while producing a scone that's even more rich and tender.

Coconut oil has a slightly lower melting point than butter, so when using it as a replacement in your favorite recipes, it may help to refrigerate the dough after shaping it into a wheel. Once it firms up, slice and bake as directed.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

As in fresh fruit scones, coconut oil limits browning in rolled sugar cookies. Not only does this keep the cookies pale—snowflakes stay snowy white—but coconut oil enriches the cookies and extends their shelf life beyond those made from butter alone.

Of course, sugar cookies should taste like butter, so I use a roughly 50/50 blend for the best of both worlds. Trading a bit of butter for coconut oil is a great way to help your favorite cookies last a little longer, which is especially useful for shipping holiday care packages.

Homemade Wheat Thins

Refined coconut oil is an essential ingredient in these homemade Wheat Thins, where its neutral flavor lets the taste of whole grains and barley malt really shine—these distinctive little crackers brown too deeply when made with butter, giving them a dark and nutty sort of character.

Homemade Donettes

If you never make doughnuts because you're turned off by that notorious fried food smell, frying with refined coconut oil's gonna rock your world. Compared to most liquid fry oils, refined coconut oil contains fewer volatile organic compounds, giving it a cleaner aroma and flavor. When I fried up these DIY Donettes in our tiny office last year, no one even realized I was in the kitchen.

Aside from giving you the ability to stealth-fry at home, refined coconut oil returns to its solid state at room temperature, which gives fried foods a lighter, crisper texture once they cool, so fried foods taste less greasy, whether you're making fish and chips or cannoli. While the same could be said of any solid fat, alternatives like lard and palm oil can be difficult to source in bulk for many folks, whereas refined coconut oil can be purchased by the gallon from warehouse clubs like Costco and Sam's, or online (by the gallon, Nutiva coconut oil is just 14 cents per ounce).

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Due to its size and density, pound cake takes ages to bake, so adding a bit of refined coconut oil can help keep it from drying out after a long stint in the oven; better yet, the added fat from coconut oil improves the shelf life of the finished product as well. Coconut oil's a key player in my own sour cream pound cake, but it's a trick you can make use of in your own favorite recipes. Next time you make a pound cake, try replacing 25% of the butter with coconut oil for an extra dose of richness.

Digestive Biscuits

Copycat recipes are a great place to make use of refined coconut oil, where its richness and neutral flavor help baked goods better mimic their store bought counterparts. Beyond that, refined coconut oil is a great tool for developing vegan variations of your favorite commercial snacks, such as chocolate digestive biscuits. Even my Homemade Oreos can be veganized on the fly with an equal weight of coconut oil in place of butter.

Coconut Layer Cake

I love refined coconut oil for its neutrality for the most part, but the flavor and aroma of virgin coconut oil can be used to strategic effect. My coconut layer cake and creamy coconut frosting are based on my vanilla butter cake and Swiss buttercream, with virgin coconut oil standing in for a portion of the butter (among other tweaks). Aside from lending its signature flavor, coconut oil improves the shelf life of the frosted cake with its added richness.

Ginger Lemon Cremes

As in my lemon blueberry scones, coconut oil's neutral flavor keeps the lemon flavor of my ginger lemon creme filling bright and fresh. Since coconut oil is solid at room temperature and free from water, it also keeps the powdered sugar filling thick and sturdy so it doesn't go squishing out with every bite. If you'd like to take advantage of that fact with your own favorite sandwich cookies, try using refined coconut oil instead of butter in the filling (or virgin coconut oil if you'd like to add a hint of flavor).

Cookie Butter

Since refined coconut oil melts at a relatively low temperature, about 75°F, it's the perfect foundation for making creamy, spreadable speculoos cookie butter at home. Blended with a thick paste made from dissolved cookie crumbs, it makes a fun alternative to peanut butter in no-bake applications.

Homemade Pancake Mix

Refined coconut oil is the key to our shelf-stable pancake mix, which can sit on the shelf for months on end. Because the oil is added up front, the mix itself couldn't be easier; when you're ready for breakfast, the batter is ready to go as soon as you stir in a splash of milk and an egg.

Cookies 'n' Cream Cookies

In this recipe, coconut oil stands in for 50% of the butter in what amounts to a basic sugar cookie dough. That cuts back on the toasty brown butter notes that cookies develop as they bake, giving the finished product a clean vanilla flavor that contrasts beautifully with the bold, bitter flavor of crumbled Oreos (whether store bought or homemade) for a cookies and cream-themed cookie.

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Like butter, coconut oil can be creamed with sugar until fluffy and light, so it's my go-to choice for vegan-izing chocolate chip cookies. To make up for refined coconut oil's lack of flavor, I spike the dough with dry malt extract to evoke the same nutty, toasted notes that butter develops as it browns in a traditional dough. So while these chocolate chip cookies may be vegan, they sure don't taste like it.

Stracciatella Gelato

On its own, pure chocolate seems waxy when frozen because eating ice cream or gelato will chill our tongues down, making it difficult for the chocolate to warm and melt. As a result, long after the ice cream has melted away, the chocolate itself will linger in our mouths as a cold, unmelting lump. These problems disappear with a spoonful of refined coconut oil, a flavorless, odorless addition that lowers the chocolate's melting point, for stracciatella gelato with crisp and snappy chips that melt-in-your-mouth.

Homemade Klondike Bars

As with the chocolate shards in stracciatella, refined coconut oil gives the outer shell of homemade Klondike Bars a satisfying snap. To keep that coating whisper thin and delicate, the ratio of coconut oil is bumped all the way to 50% of the chocolate by weight. That proportion creates a chocolate coating that's runny and thin while warm, making the ice cream bars easy to dip, and beautifully glossy once set.

Homemade Strawberry Shortcake Bars

To help the freeze-dried strawberry and crispy rice coating stick, these berries 'n cream ice cream bars are dipped in white chocolate cut with refined coconut oil. As with our homemade Klondike bars, coconut oil serves to keep the white chocolate shell snappy and thin, so as not to detract from the crispy, colorful, and fruity outer layer of an old-fashioned strawberry shortcake bar.

Banana Granola

A little coconut oil helps enrich our banana granola while keeping it crisp and dry. Use refined coconut oil for a neutral flavor, or let the flavor and aroma of virgin coconut oil elevate banana's tropical vibe.