Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Lazy Coconut Flour Banana Bread


So it was New Year's Day and I was bouncing around trying to avoid working on my paper organizing and working on my upcoming cookbook. I spotted 3 spotted bananas and claimed them as mine. I remembered I wanted to use up that coconut flour I bought months ago. It's expensive and I'm not sure why I got it (to make some Trim Healthy Mama goodies?) since I don't have the time to bake very often anyway.

Plus, let's face it, in my house when I bake a set of 4 mini banana bread loaves, they are inhaled within a few hours. Still, the allure of that coconut flour with its pretty pretty protein and it's fabulous fiber and it's cautious carb count. I couldn't resist. It makes me feel like I'm being healthier and feeding my kids all great too.

The ingredients:

1 cup coconut flour
3 ripe bananas
4 eggs
6 T melted butter or coconut oil
5 T honey
1/4 t. salt
1 t. to 1 T cinnamon to taste
1/2 t. baking soda
1 T vanilla
Sugar ... here you can do what you like. I used about 3 t. coconut sugar to see what it would taste like in the end. You can use regular sugar or the liquid stevia.

The steps:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

2. Use pan spray to coat your loaf pan. I like a mini loaf pan that gives us 4 mini loaves plus the cooking time is reduced and the middle is never gross. This is one reason the recipe is dubbed "lazy" ... good cooks use parchment paper to line their baking situations but not me. Lay-zee.

3. Smash the bananas in a bowl and add all other wet ingredients.

4. Here's the other lazy part: good cooks keep their wet and dry ingredients separate, like a bride and groom on their wedding day. Me? Nah. I do the wet stuff then add the dry stuff and mix it all together. The result usually rocks.

*side note: as I was making this recipe, my husband came into the kitchen as I was shaking cinnamon into the bowl (not measuring). He jokingly asked how much I put in. I said I didn't know. He says, "It's okay, baby, you do your thing." I have to say that was awesome because there was a time when he was about to lock me away for the way I bake ... not measuring everything and not being exact and yet my stuff turns out okay most of the time anyway. I love that guy.

5. Put your concoction into your loaf pan/pans. This makes one large loaf or four small ones. Bake for 20 minutes then check it. I never can get things to come out at the same time every time so you'll have to babysit this one. Sorry about that.

6. Top with lots of butter because I am a champion of butter and don't believe it is evil!

You can customize this recipe once you get comfortable with it. For instance, you could add mini chocolate chips or try out applesauce instead of the butter. Let me know how it works out!

Check out more awesome recipes in this!