Tuesday Tried It - Coconut Banana Bread

            I’ve been making banana bread since I was nine years old.  When you’re eight, you make snickerdoodles and when you’re nine you make banana bread.  That’s how cooking goes in 4-H.

            As all 4-H’ers know you make batch after batch after batch after batch (and that is no exaggeration) of the same thing all summer long trying to perfect it before the fair.  And then at the fair, behind closed doors in the white and green 4-H building, the judge takes one bite of your baked good and either gives you a blue, red, or white ribbon.  (There are many mysteries in life and one of them is how that judge determines who gets the blue ribbons since all 46 entries use the same recipe and put use a doily for presentation.) 

            As a result of all those batches of Snickerdoodles and banana bread (there were seven of us 4-H cooking sisters in our family), I don’t have much of a stomach for either today.  But more than I hate banana bread, I hate wasting.  When I cleaned out the refrigerator-freezer this week and saw two baggies of frozen bananas I made banana bread.  But, because I also found a cup of coconut milk (leftover from a batch of coconut syrup three months ago) in the back of the freezer, I tried a new pinterest recipe:  (click on link for original pin) Coconut Banana Bread 

            I followed the recipe for the first two steps and then shortcut my way through the rest of it.  I made them into muffins so that . . . so that . . . so that I would have some to share.  And since they were muffins it was easy to add a crumble topping which I hoped would make them taste even less like banana bread. 

Coconut Banana Bread

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp each vanilla and almond extract

2 ½ cups flour

1 ½ tsps baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

3 mashed overripe bananas (about 1 cup)

1 cup coconut milk

1 cup coconut

Crumb Topping

¼ cup softened butter

½ cup flour

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup coconut

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In mixing bowl mix oil and sugar.  Add eggs, vanilla, and almond extract.
3. Mix dry ingredients in separate bowl. 
4. Mix bananas and coconut milk in yet another bowl.
5. Gradually add the dry ingredients alternately with the banana and milk mixture.  Start and end with the dry ingredients.  Stir in coconut.
6. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners and fill cups 2/3 full of batter.  Sprinkle with crumb topping and bake for 20-23 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

They were good! And, if you already love banana bread (and you like coconut), then I bet you will think this recipe is really, really good.