Banana-Coconut Bread

When I woke up this morning and walked into the kitchen, the first thing I saw was the three very ripe bananas sitting on my microwave. And then I thought banana bread! I normally don't have bananas that are ripe enough to make bread with. They don't last that long. My son loves his 'naners'.

So once my errands were done for the day I got to work.

I found this recipe on For the Love of Cooking a while back and its been festering in the back of my mind ever since. I love banana and coconut together! The original recipe makes muffins but I adapted it to make a loaf.

It's baking right now as I type this and my kitchen smells wonderful. The cinnamon smell is mouthwatering.

Banana Coconut Bread
Adapted recipe and photos by BusyNothings.
Original recipe found on For the Love of Cooking

1 1/2 cups of flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 stick of butter (6 tbsp) melted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cups of sugar
1 large egg
2 large very ripe bananas
3/4 cup shredded coconut plus more for sprinkling on top.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat loaf pan with cooking spray.
In a small mixing bowl combine first four ingredients. In another, larger bowl, whisk together vanilla, sugar and egg. Add melted butter to sugar and egg mixture and mix well. Smash the bananas and add to the batter as well as the coconut until well combined. Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and mix until ingredients are just comibined. Don't over mix the batter. Pour batter into loaf pan and sprinkle some coconut on top.
Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until tester inserted in the middle of the loaf comes out clean.



Note: Since this recipe was adapted from a muffin recipe, the loaf won't be very tall. Next time I'll be making them as muffins.

Lemon Cream Cupcakes!

Today, I had the urge to bake. Now, you must understand. This urge doesn't come very often. Don't get me wrong, I like to bake. But cooking is more of my thing. Maybe it has something to do with too much baking as a young teen? Who knows. But for whatever reason, I don't bake often.

I poked around online for a while, trying to find something that didn't use cocoa powder (I'm all out! :( ). I asked some friends and got a very quick 'Cupcakes!' in response. Cupcakes!

I don't think I've made cupcakes since last Thanksgiving...when I baked and frosted about four dozen to take to a party...and I think only three got eaten. Hey, its hard to compete with a pumpkin cheesecake on Thanksgiving.

So I scoured my ever-handy and favorite Allrecipes and found this!

I'm a sucker for lemon.

I pretty much followed the recipe but for the lemon rind as I don't have any. I also halved the recipe...there are only two adults and a toddler here...there's no call for 30 cupcakes! :)

They came together so beautifully and quickly. The batter was so nice and thick. The sour cream is such a nice touch.


Lemon Cream Cupcakes from Allrecipes.com
(recipe and photos by literarymiss. Original recipe from allrecipes.com)
1/2 C. butter, softened
1 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 3/4 C. all-purpose flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 C. sour cream

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla; mix well. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and add to butter mixture alternately with the sour cream. (Batter will be thick). Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups with 1/4 cup of the batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes then move to wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Lemon Cream Frosting
1 1/2 T butter, softened
1 C. + 2 T. powdered sugar
1 T. lemon juice
1/4 t. vanilla extract
1 1/2 t. milk

Cream together butter and sugar in a small mixing bowl. Add lemon juice, vanilla and milk. Beat until smooth. Frost cupcakes.



**ok. I made these following the above recipe. The cupcakes are wonderful! But I will never use this frosting again. It was way too runny and I had to add way too much powdered sugar to make it thick enough to frost. It ended up way to sweet and I ended up scraping it off! Buttercream Frosting next time with some lemon extract!

Liz