Macadamia flour substitutes

The default nut flour, easy to find and reliable, just less rich.

Best for

shortbread and cookies, cakes, pie crusts, keto fat bombs, muffins

Structurally this works beautifully, since both are nut flours with no gluten and similar particle size. The difference is fat: macadamia is around three-quarters fat and almond closer to half, so an almond-flour shortbread comes out a little drier and firmer with a shorter snap, and the flavor turns from buttery and creamy to lightly sweet and marzipan-like. Adding a small amount of butter closes most of the gap. Use blanched almond flour for the same pale color.

Ground pecans, the closest thing to macadamia in fat content and richness.

Best for

pie crusts, cookies, crumb toppings, coffee cakes

Nearly as fatty as macadamia, so the crumb stays just as tender and short, which is the main thing macadamia flour is prized for. What changes is the flavor and the color: pecan is sweeter with a faint maple note and a slight tannic bitterness in the finish, and it turns the bake noticeably brown. A pale macadamia shortbread becomes a tan, nuttier cookie. It also browns faster, so pull it from the oven earlier.

Ground hazelnuts, high in fat with a much more pronounced roasted flavor.

Best for

cookies, tortes, chocolate bakes, crusts

Similar fat level and the same tender, short crumb, so it performs well. The flavor is the whole story: hazelnut is assertive, toasty and slightly sweet in a way that walks all over anything delicate, so a lemon macadamia cake made with it becomes a hazelnut cake with lemon in it. Wonderful with chocolate and coffee. The crumb comes out beige to light brown rather than ivory.

Ground cashews, mild and slightly sweet, closest in color to macadamia.

Best for

cakes, cookies, frostings and fillings, pale bakes

The nearest thing in appearance, since both are ivory-white, and mild enough not to hijack a delicate recipe. Cashews carry more starch and less fat than macadamias, so the crumb is slightly chewier and less crumbly, the bake a touch sweeter, and the carbohydrate count noticeably higher, which matters if you are counting. Add a teaspoon of butter per cup if you want the richness back.

Nut-free and low-carb, but it behaves in a completely different way.

Best for

muffins, pancakes, quick breads, nut-free baking

Do not swap this one for one, because coconut flour absorbs several times its weight in liquid and a direct swap produces something like dry crumbs. Even done properly the result is different in kind: cakey and absorbent rather than rich and short, with an unmistakable sweet coconut flavor. It is the right choice if the point is avoiding nuts entirely, and the wrong choice if the point is that buttery macadamia texture.

Grinding your own raw macadamias, which costs far less than the packaged flour.

Best for

any recipe calling for macadamia flour, crusts, cookies, crumb toppings

Good, with one hazard: macadamias are so oily that a food processor turns them into macadamia butter in seconds. Freeze the nuts for half an hour first, pulse in one-second bursts, and add a tablespoon of the recipe's sweetener or a spoon of almond flour to the bowl to absorb released oil. Stop while it still looks like coarse sand. Homemade meal is coarser, so the bake will be slightly sandier and a little more rustic.