Coconut Banana Bread

Banana bread is one of those things that you'll do crazy things for, like buying green bananas and leaving them out to get overripe and brown while fruit flies start to invade your kitchen.

This banana coconut bread combined one part crazy with one part leftovers. I recently received a crock pot (courtesy of an awesome contest at Kiss My Broccoli) and made a sweet potato and pea curry that left me with 3/4 a cup of coconut milk. I decided I would make banana bread using the coconut milk, so I took to the internets for a recipe. I found one that gave me an idea of the right proportion of coconut milk to flour and then I poked around some more.

This banana bread was so perfect - it had good texture and was sweet (chocolate chips) but not excessive (there's 3/4 cup of brown sugar). If you've never used coconut milk before, shake the can really hard until you hear liquid then shake some more before you open it. The next time I have leftover coconut milk, I realllllly hope there are bananas in the house.

Coconut Banana Bread

3/4 cup coconut milk
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
2 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of salt
3/4 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional, but really?)

Whisk together coconut milk, brown sugar, eggs, honey and vanilla. And mashed bananas and stir.
In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients - oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Add the dry mixture to the wet and stir until combined. Fold in coconut and chocolate chips.

Pour into a greased 9x5 loaf pan, sprinkle with raw sugar if you have it, and bake at 350 for about an hour and 15 minutes.