Coco-Choco Banana Bread

Do you eat up all your bananas every time you buy them?

If you do, please identify youselves cause I have polled about 30 people and out of all those 30, none of them said they eat them all up before they get to the mushy, brown, fruit flies are buzzing around them stage. Not-a-one!

I suspect that my father-in-law might though, but sadly I have to admit, I do not. I buy them with the best of intentions, pick them when they are just a pale yellow color, planning in my head as to which day they will be perfectly ripe and ready to eat.

This is the scenario that plays out in my head every time I pick up a bunch:

"So let's see, today is Thurday, these should ripen by Monday, there's 5 bananas, I should have one for each work day. Yeah that'll work. I will eat all the bananas. I will!"

Never happens.

By Wednesday they are starting to get too ripe, by Friday if the fruit flies haven't begun an attack, they are officially ready to become banana bread, and I'm ok with that.

I love banana bread....and I have a little secret that makes my banana bread a little less heavy than most. Whip your bananas! It's true. I do it every time I make banana bread, no matter the recipe. I whip them up with a mixer until they are light and fluffy and I fold them into the batter at the end. Works like a charm.

This version has chocolate and coconut! It's like banana bread's version of a Mounds Bar.

What's not to love about mushy bananas?



Coco-Choco-Nana Bread
From www.mmmisformommy.com
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
5 medium bananas, whipped
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup shredded coconut (unsweetened)

In a large bowl or in stand mixer, cream butter and sugar well and add eggs one at a time, beating well between each. Mix in the vanilla and set aside.

In another bowl, whisk the flour, soda and salt together. Add the dry ingredients into the wet by hand and combined just until no bits of dry ingredient remain. Fold in the whipped banana. Divide the batter into two bowls and add the cocoa and coconut to one of the bowls and mix in well by hand.

Grease and flour a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan and alternate the two batters, I did half plain, three quarters of the chocolate, the other half of the plain and then the rest of the chocolate in two 'glops'. Swirl and somewhat even with a long skewer or a butter knife. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 60 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack until completely cool before wrapping.