This super easy banana bread recipe always turns out nice and moist. You just need a few simple ingredients and you can make this recipe in about an hour.
One of the most important ingredients is overripe bananas. You want them getting soft and mushy because it makes them sweeter and gives the bread a wonderful banana flavor.
It also calls for toasted coconut flakes and chopped walnuts (or almonds, if you prefer). This gives it a wonderful crunchy texture. And banana and coconut are great together.
You can enjoy this banana bread for breakfast, as a snack or even as an easy dessert. It’s great topped with a little whipped cream.
One of the things that makes this a favorite banana bread recipe is that it uses less sugar than most. That’s perfect if you like it less sweet or want to top it with something sweet. But you can use more sugar if you want it sweeter – the details are in the recipe.
How to Make Toasted Coconut Banana Bread
You don’t need a lot of experience baking to make this great recipe work. Even if you have very little experience baking, just try this recipe. You’ll have homemade banana bread in no time. You can make the toasted coconut flakes first and do some of the early steps for the banana bread at the same time.
One of the first steps in making it is mashing the bananas. All you need to do is put the bananas in a mixing bowl and mash them with a fork until they’re pretty smooth. They’ll still have small small chunks, but that’s actually what you want.
The next step is to mix melted butter into the mashed bananas. It probably doesn’t matter so much what order you mix things in. But this order gets it nice and wet before you start adding the dry ingredients.
Next comes an egg. Beat it and stir it into the mixture.
Now you add in the sugar (I like turbinado, but you can use brown sugar or white), baking soda, salt and vanilla extract. Stir everything until it’s smooth again.
You can really use as much or as little sugar as you want. It’s all a matter of taste. A half cup is mildly sweet. A full cup is sweeter. I’ve actually used a quarter cup, and was barely sweet but still had that wonderful banana flavor. If you have to watch your sugar, know that using less is okay in this recipe.
Add in the flour. You can pour it all in at once and stir, or you can add it in gradually. Sometimes that’s easier than all at once, but what matters is that it’s a smooth batter when you’re done.
And finally, you add in the toasted coconut flakes and chopped walnuts. Sliced almonds are great if you prefer that flavor. This is the time to add any other random ingredients for flavor that you want, such as chocolate chips.
Once you’ve stirred everything into a batter, you pour it into your loaf pan. Note that the batter doesn’t need to be perfectly smooth. Some chunkiness gives it a nice texture. And the last thing you want to do is overmix it.
Now put it in the oven to bake and leave it for at least 45 minutes. After that, check it to see if it looks done. If it does, test it by sticking a toothpick down in the center of it. If it comes out clean, it really is done.
Depending on your oven, it will most likely take at least a full hour before it’s done. Just keep checking every 10 minutes until the toothpick comes out clean.
Toasted Coconut Flakes
If you’re including toasted coconut flakes, you can make them at the very start or even a day or so before. It’s really simple. You just spread shredded coconut flakes out on a baking sheet with foil. I use sweetened flakes for this.
Once the oven has finished preheating, put them in.
A little advice if you’ve got a convection/air fry oven like I do, this stuff toasts a little bit faster than in a normal oven. The first time I tried it in this new oven, I got very dark brown crispy coconut flakes:
Surprisingly, they were totally delicious, so I put them in the bread and it was great, too. But you generally want to aim for something more like this:
Tips for Making the Best Banana Bread
Don’t Overmix the Batter
It’s easy to overmix the batter for banana bread, even when you’re using a spoon. That makes it more glutenous, which leads to a tougher texture. Just stir enough to get things mixed together.
Forget the Blender
If you’ve been wondering why this recipe doesn’t call for you to use a blender, now you know. A blender would definitely overmix the ingredients.
Bananas Must Be Very Ripe to Overripe
Underripe bananas are too tough and not moist enough to make a good batter for this bread. Look for bananas that are very ripe or even overripe. If they’re getting black spots on the outside, that’s perfect.
Easy Coconut Banana Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 3 overripe bananas
- 1/2 cup turbinado, brown or white sugar (up to 1 cup if you want it sweeter)
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup toasted coconut flakes (see below)
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts (or sliced almonds)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- Pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
Toasted Coconut Flakes
- Pre-heat your oven to 350.
- Spread coconut flakes on a foil lined cookie sheet and put them in oven.
- Check every 3 minutes or so.
- Once they have browned, stir them around so every surface gets toasted.
Banana Bread
- Butter a 8x4 inch loaf pan.
- Beat an egg
- Put the ripe bananas in a mixing bowl and mash them with a fork until they're smooth.
- Pour in the melted butter and stir until it's mixed.
- Stir in the egg.
- Mix in the sugar, baking soda, salt and vanilla extract.
- Add in the flour and stir until it's a smooth batter.
- Mix in the toasted coconut flakes and chopped walnuts.
- Pour the batter into your loaf pan.
- Bake for about 45 minutes at 350 and check it. If it looks done, stick a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean, you're done.
- If not, put it back in for 10 minutes and check again, until the toothpick comes out clean.
- Take it out of the oven and let it cool on a baking rack.
- Once it's cooled, remove from pan.
- Slice and serve.
Notes
This recipe calls for white sugar, but you can absolutely use brown sugar too.