Substituting ingredients (baking)

[Sugarsnap1982]

I'm generally happy to play fast and loose with recipes for savoury dishes, substituting whatever I've got to hand or if I fancy a different taste to the normal result. But you've got to be a bit more careful with cakes and other bakes, or the proportions go wrong and you end up with something inedible. I don't mind swapping, say dried fruit for chocolate chips, or different fruit juices, if I'm using one recipe as a base for something else, but beyond that I try not to mess with them.

I've been trying to find a recipe for Bakewell Tart muffins (basically almond and cherry) and having some trouble.
I ended up using a recipe for coconut muffins that I as a base, swapping the dessicated coconut for ground almonds, vanilla extract for almond extract, and coconut milk for plain milk. It was nice, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for, not moist and almondy enough. I think I may need to swap some of the flour for more ground almonds as well, but I'm a bit nervous about doing it - will I need to adjust the liquid content as well? I've got a suspicion that the almonds might be more absorbent than flour.

Any ideas anyone?

 

[welsh dragon]

Why not simply make a sponge cake mixture and add almond flavouring. It's moist and quite close to the original recipes, and there are fewer Imgredients so its easier.

 

[DancingLady]

I am not sure what dessicated coconut is so I can't really compare it to ground almonds very well, but I do think almonds are pretty absorbent. You may need to add some extra butter or oil if it is dry. Sometimes just adding more water doesn't work because it just evaporates.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I am not sure what dessicated coconut

Dessicated coconut is coconut meat that is either grated or flaked and then dried out completely. You do however have to be careful when you buy it because there are 2 forms of it, sweetened and unsweetened...

Typically dried coconut had a higher moisture content than desiccated coconut does, so although it can be used as a substitution, not you need to be careful with liquid volumes and often reduce then by an unknown percentage!