Coconut & vanilla banana loaf

Coconut & vanilla banana loaf

This is a perfect way to use those annoying bananas you swore you’d eat before they went spotty. It’s a buttery, almost cakey loaf, but that doesn’t mean you can’t put more butter on top! Or golden syrup for that matter. Delicious with a cuppa for morning or afternoon tea!

The bananas really need to be over-ripe – as a banana ripens, some of the starch in the banana turns to sugar, and also the flavour intensifies – which is what we want. To speed up the ripening process, pop the bananas in a paper bag with an apple or an orange and leave overnight or a day or two.

Ingredients

1 cup mashed very ripe banana (about 2 big bananas)
1/2 cup unsweetened yoghurt
150g butter, at room temperature
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 free-range eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla essence
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp mixed spice
1 cup desiccated coconut

Method

Preheat the oven to 170c. Grease and flour a medium sized loaf tin and line the bottom with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

Sift the dry ingredients except coconut into a bowl, and stir in the coconut to combine. Add to the creamed mixture along with with the banana and yoghurt and fold until just combined.

Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and bake in the oven for around an hour and 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Serve warm with butter – and golden syrup if you like!