Can't find flour at the store? We got you.
Charlotte Gomez / BuzzFeed
Want to bake — but can't find all-purpose flour at the store right now? 🍪
There are lots of ways to get around those flourless shelves, and that includes turning to baked goods with smart substitutions and ingredient swaps. Below you'll find a ton of AP flour-free baking recipes — from chocolate cake to peanut butter cookies to Instant Pot cheesecake.
1. Chocolate Espresso Cake
Made with dark chocolate, espresso powder, eggs, and olive oil, this is the chunkier, fudge-ier (and easier!) alternative to layer cake. If it looks like a chocolate bar in cake form, that's because it basically is.
Recipe: Chocolate Espresso Cake
2. Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake
If your supermarket is anything like mine right now, there's not much AP flour on shelves — but there's plenty of boxed cake mixes with flour already inside. The latter is a great shortcut! This recipe upgrades a box of yellow cake and adds fresh rhubarb.
Recipe: Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake
3. Banana Bread Chocolate Chip Bars
You can make these bars firmer by adding more oats or adding less banana. If you want even more flavor, sneak in a bit of pumpkin spice or cinnamon.
Recipe: Banana Bread Chocolate Chip Bars
4. Berry Pavlova With Lemon Curd Cream
Before all the other flourless desserts came along, there was pavlova. It's just egg whites + sugar + vanilla extract, and the final product has a perfectly chewy, crispy, and marshmallowy texture.
5. Baked Apple Bread
You've tried banana bread, but have you ever tried apple bread? It's made with oatmeal and apples, and lightly sweetened with honey. Smear it with a nut butter for a complete breakfast.
Recipe: Apple Bread
More than ever, we need classic and comforting desserts to perfume our kitchens and soothe our stomachs. The only thing that would make this recipe better is if it were made by mom. 😍
This recipe is flourless — but it does call for 1 1/2 cups of almond meal. If you can't find any at your local store, you can make some by tossing almonds into a blender. See the how-to instructions for making almond meal here.
Recipe: Walnut Brownies
8. Sweet Potato Chocolate Chip Muffins
So what if you squint a little, these muffins start looking like actual sweet potatoes? It's the moistest chocolate chip muffin I've ever had AND it gets extra points for (kind of) counting as a serving of veggies.
9. Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake Bites
If you've got an old package of graham crackers from last summer's campfire, then you're halfway there for these cheesecake bites. Decadent, rich, and snackable, they'll vanish as quickly as your s'mores did.
Who knew a can of chickpeas and some peanut butter made such a delicious dessert power combo? Throw in some chocolate chips, and you've got a pan of tasty, chewy blondies ready to be devoured.
Recipe: Chickpea Chocolate Chip Blondies
11. Fluffy Oatmeal Muffins
This recipe calls for old-fashioned oats, aka the flaky, thicker oats that take longer to cook than instant oatmeal. Hot tip: Throw in your other usual oatmeal toppings like raisins or slivered almonds for the perfect breakfast muffin.
Recipe: Fluffy Oatmeal Muffins
12. 20-Minute Honey Almond Cake
This four-ingredient cake takes just 20 minutes to prep, and five minutes to wolf down. Make sure to save some extra almonds to sprinkle on top of the cake as soon as it's out of the oven.
Recipe: 20-Minute Honey Almond Cake
13. Chocolate Molten Lava Cake
A high-quality chocolate bar will serve as your main ingredient for this flourless classic, so make sure you get the good stuff. For toppings, try fresh fruit, chopped nuts, or your favorite ice cream.
Recipe: Chocolate Molten Lava Cake
14. Sweet Potato Pie Muffins
If you're one of those people who often eats desserts and thinks, "This would be better, if it were just a little less sweet," then this recipe is for you. It's only sweetened with the natural sugars of sweet potatoes, meaning you can have them as a snack and not crash.
Recipe: Sweet Potato Pie Muffins
These cookies are more peanut butter than actual cookie, but hey, we're not complaining. They're also gluten-free and vegan.
Recipe: Peanut Butter Cookies
16. Tahini Seed Bread
You don't need a fancy sourdough starter (or even flour) to make your own bread. Take this recipe, which uses tahini in place of flour to bring together all the spices and seeds into one super satisfying loaf.
Recipe: Tahini Seed Bread
17. Strawberry Almond Cake
Not only do ground almonds make excellent flour substitutes, they also make desserts smell fancy as hell.
Recipe: Strawberry Almond Cake
18. Banana Bread
Miss going to your local coffee shop to grab coffee and a pastry? Whip up this banana bread using overripe bananas and oat flour. (And by the way, you can totally make oat flour by grinding up oats in a blender until they're a fine powder.)
Recipe: Banana Bread
19. Pecan-Cinnamon Sweet Potato Blondies
There's something about starchy sweet potatoes that works perfectly in lush, caramelly blondies. The crunch of white chocolate chips and pecans prevents excessive gooeyness and adds killer texture.
20. Plantain Cake
This recipe relies on three extremely ripe (aka, nearly black) plantains for a moist cake that's delicious on its own or served with whipped cream and berries.
Recipe: Plantain Cake
21. 3-Ingredient Instant Pot Cheesecake
You can bake this recipe in either an Instant Pot or an oven. And since it's made with just three ingredients (eggs + cream cheese + milk chocolate), you really can't go wrong with either method.
