Banana Coconut Walnut Bread

This is a quick bread which is sweet and nutty and delicious. An easy bread to whip up when pressed for time.

Banana Coconut Walnut Bread

2 1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour (or All-Purpose Flour)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
2/3 cup Sugar
2 large Eggs
1 cup Banana, mashed
1/2 cup Skim Milk (or whole milk, or whatever milk you have on hand)
1/4 cup Coconut Oil (or any oil you have on hand)
1 tsp Vanilla essence
1/2 cup Coconut, shredded
1/4 cup Walnuts (Optional (or) any other nut you have available: almonds, cashewnut, pecans)

Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

Whisk together all the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In another bowl, whisk sugar and eggs until combined. Add the mashed banana, milk, oil and vanilla and whisk until combined.

Add the banana mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add the coconut and walnuts and stir to combine.

Pour the batter into a 9"x5" loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes. Let cool before removing from pan.

Enjoy.

Other Quick Breads in this blog: Parmesan Walnut Bread, Beautiful Banana Bread, Mango Bread, Banana Chocolate Bread and Honey Bread.

Banana Apple Muffins

I'm always looking for fun and healthy food to bake with my daughter. When I came across Divya's post in her blog, Easy Cooking, on Eggless Apple Banana Muffins, they sounded perfect. I was fine with using eggs, but decided to just follow her recipe. I made a couple of changes though, I added some chopped walnuts, and a small fistful of chocolate chips.

Banana Apple Muffins (without eggs)

(from Easy Cooking blog)

3 ripe Bananas, chopped (OR 1 egg + 2 Bananas)

1 cup Apple, peeled and chopped

1/4 cup Butter, melted and cooled

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 1/8 cup All-Purpose Flour

1/3 cup + 1 tbsp Brown Sugar

3/4 tsp Baking Powder

1/4 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1/4 tsp Salt

1/8 cup Walnuts, chopped

1/8 cup Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

Mix together the mashed bananas, sugar and vanilla until the sugar is well blended. Whisk in the melted and cooled butter.

Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, apple and salt). Fold in the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients. Spoon the batter into a greased and lined muffin pan. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

The muffins are absolutely delicious. And both my daughters ate them as they came out of the oven!

Thanks for a great recipe, Divya. And I'm excited this is my first eggless muffin recipe, and it's already a keeper.

Banana Chocolate Bread

I've been terribly out of touch with my blogs for a few months. What can I say? December is always so busy that sometimes I need a couple months of hibernation just to recover.

In my hibernation, I forgot to add my contribution to the Sweet and Simple Bakes February bake. I did make the bread but didn't blog about it. So here it is. It's one of the simplest and most delicious breads I've ever made. My daughter actually did the mashing, mixing and tasting! Here's the recipe from Maria and Rosie of Sweet and Simple Bakes:


Banana Chocolate Bread

9 oz Self-Raising Flour
Pinch of Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
5 oz Caster Sugar
3 ½ oz Butter, softened
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Finely grated zest of 1 orange (I left this out - not a big fan of orange zest)
4 small Bananas, peeled
3 oz Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.

Lightly butter and line the loaf tin with parchment paper. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into a large bowl. Add the sugar and butter and, using your fingertips, rub it in until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Whisk the eggs, vanilla extract and orange zest in another bowl.


Add the bananas and mash very well with a potato masher. Add the chocolate chips. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the banana mixture. Gently but thoroughly bring all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon, then pour into the prepared loaf tin.

Smooth the top and bake in the oven for 1-1 ¼ hours or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing the cake from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Everyone should try this at least once in their lives. It's absolutely amazing.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

If you haven't checked out Sweet + Simple Bakes, it's a great new site that is being hosted by Rosie and Maria. It promotes baking for amateurs and gets us to make the most delicious, simple bakes every month. Kinda like a Daring Bakers for those who have never baked, don't bake much or those professional bakers who just want to get back to the basics.

For this month's Sweet + Simple Bakes challenge, we got to make fabulous Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins. I've made muffins before, but this was so good and so simple. The banana added a moistness to the muffins, which we loved.


Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
(recipe from Sweet + Simple Bakes)

3 very ripe Bananas
1/2 cup vegetable Oil
2 Eggs
1 3/4 cups All-purpose Flour
3/4 cup Caster Sugar
½ tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
150g (little more than 3/4 cup) Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 200ºC and line a muffin tin with muffin papers.

Mash the bananas and set aside. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs in with the oil.

Put the flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder into a large bowl and mix in the beaten-egg-and-oil mixture, followed by the mashed bananas.

Fold in the chocolate chips, then spoon equal quantities into the prepared muffin tin and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

It was delicious. As always. Thanks again, Rosie and Maria.