November 14, 2013

Toasted Coconut Banana Bread with Pecans

Last weekend was cold yet gorgeously sunny. On Friday evenings I usually go grocery shopping after picking up my daughter from school and on this particular weekend, since my husband was also out of town, I decided to indulge in some "retail therapy"  by hitting the mall for some holiday splurging ;-)   I am so glad my daughter loves this kind of therapy too and she usually get down to business right away trying to decide between the brightest pink dresses for me and her. Little girls and their obsession for pink - what can I say?

The next morning I felt the urge to do some healthy baking and made this Banana bread, texturing it with some toasted coconut and nutty pecans that adds an amazing flavor to the loaf! 



The aroma from the freshly baked bread rejuvenated me and I started clicking some random photos of the gorgeous brown eggs as they looked so damn good. I ultimately ended up spending quite some time snapping photos of these eggs from different angles until I was pretty spent. Click-crazy, I know!!  Well, if you did notice those feathers in the wire egg basket and was wondering how I got those, don't worry, I dint hurt any bird to get these as I too am an animal/bird lover at heart! OK here goes the story: We have a lake facing home and during a recent summer evening, while having tea out on the patio, I noticed a few geese fighting furiously and in the process loosing feathers. Well opportunity struck and after the cease-fire and all the geese had left the zone, I bravely ventured out to grab a few feathers for my prop collection. Well, my daughter was curious and excited participant of this whole operation and seemed to have fun. Those few feathers came in handy this past weekend but recently I have been getting some angry "hisses' from the geese and I hope they are not planning an operation to get back their fallen feathers..LOL!!





I have always had a love- hate relationship with bananas. I love them when they are just ripe as soon as they are ripened I hate them. But I love them in baked goods like brown butter banana muffins  that I had posted last year or even in delicious fruit smoothie like the blueberry smoothie with nutella and peanut butter or the cocoa date smoothie. Another way to use the ripened banana is to add them to Payasam (Indian pudding)



Yields - 1 loaf
Ingredients
1/2 cup - Oil
1 cup - Brown sugar,packed
2 - Eggs
3 - Ripe bananas (1½ cups mashed)
½ cup - Buttermilk
1 teaspoon - vanilla extract
1 cup - Whole wheat flour, sifted
1 cup - All purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon - Baking soda
1 teaspoon - Baking powder
½ teaspoon - Salt
3/4 cup - Coconut(desiccated or fresh)
1/4 cup - Pecans or walnuts, chopped
1 tablespoon - Chia seeds (optional)

Topping
2 Tablespoons - Coconut(desiccated or fresh)
1/4 Cup - Whole Pecans

Directions
  • Preheat the oven to 350F
  • Take a heavy bottomed pan toast the coconut until they turn golden brown. Set aside.
  • Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside
  • In the stand mixer bowl add brown sugar, eggs and oil and beat on medium speed until all ingredients have been incorporated.
  • Add buttermilk, vanilla and mashed bananas and beat again.
  • Now add the dry ingredients to the wet little by little. Make sure that you run the mixer on slow speed else you will have flour all over!
  • Mix in the toasted coconut, pecans and chia seeds.
  • Transfer the batter into a greased loaf pan.
  • Top the loaf with coconut and pecans
  • Bake for 50-60 minutes or until the inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Notes and Tips
  • If you are allergic to coconut, skip this ingredients out and follow rest of the recipe
  • You can opt out wheat flour and make this loaf with all purpose flour
  • You can add raisins, cranberries or chocolate chips
  • This loaf is mildly sweet. You can increase the brown sugar to 1 1/4 cup to make a sweeter bread


23 comments:

  1. Over ripe bananas are not my favorite and this recipe sounds great. Thanks Shema for sharing the recipe. Pictures look awesome.

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  2. My favorite flavors are in that loaf of bread, will try it soon. Nice clicks!!

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  3. Looks delicious shema !! I love the addition of toasted coconut and pecans in it.. Beautiful clicks as well. This is definitely on my must make list :)

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  4. I love making banana bread and your unique touch is perfect. Coconut sounds like a ridiculously tasty addition, kudos girl.
    Pinned it and can't wait to try it this version out sometime.

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  5. I love banana bread this looks divine with coconut in it.Love the clicks.

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  6. Shema,I was just thinking so where did u arrange the feather from :) We do the same here it only ends up on projects and clips...
    Yummy looking banana bread.

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  7. Lovely banana bread - must have tasted so good after that retail therapy with your daughter. That sounds so fun. And I agree that it's hard to get that "perfect" eating banana. Lucky they are so good in so many baked goods.

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  8. Love that you used a ton of coconut for this recipe. My fav!

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  9. normally bananas never get ripe in my house but when it does, i'm the happiest person, i love them in any bakes, but i rarely get a chance! this loaf is calling me out... i've some bananas sitting and i was thinking to myself of baking something tonight for breakfast tomorow... lemme bookmark this...

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  10. A wonderful cake! So fluffy and moist.

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  11. hey shama i tried this out last night and served it for breakfast - absolutely awesome! only thing is that i avoided in the pecans in the topping, used milk instead of buttermilk and baked at 170 degrees for 80 minutes. loved it... :)

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  12. I love banana bread and adding a toasted coconut is such a great idea. Thanks for sharing :)

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  13. OMG!
    The cake looks so moist and delicious! Wish I could have some now as I sip my morning chai. Your photos are gorgeous!

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  14. The cake is so rustic and looks so moist! Breakfast treat I say, or any time for dessert! Beautiful as always, Shema!

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  15. Shema: What a gorgeous loaf! I love everything about it --- above all, its flavor.

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  16. delicious and yummy looking loaf....I will visit this post again when I would end up having over ripe bananas...:)

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  17. what a beautiful banana bread...love the toasted coconuts on top :-)

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  18. Want any more ripe bananas, come over...we always seem to have an abundance of overripe bananas in my house and i always end up making pancakes or banana loaf with them :-) I really liked the addition of coconuts in this. will try your recipe next time.

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  19. I never baked banana loaf even though it's one of my fav fruit that I eat almost every day. I really should try out the loaf too! Yours looks fantastic!

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  20. There are so many banana bread recipes that I want to make, and now yours are included to the list! Love coconut in all kinds of baked recipes. It must taste wonderful with banana and pecan in this recipe.

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  21. I love coconut in baked goods, and this looks so delicious! I have a list of banana bread recipes that I want to try, and now yours are included into the list. Looks yummy!

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  22. Divine! This is such a wonderful bread.

    Happy New Year and best wishes for 2014!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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First of all thanks a lot for stopping by my space. I would be very happy to hear from you and would love to see your comments and feedback :)
Thanks a bunch,
Shema