I’m so excited to announce that as of this week I’m the newest member of the Cooking Light Bloggers’ Connection! The Bloggers’ Connection is a group of bloggers who devote at least part of their blogs to discussions of delicious, healthy food and I’m extremely honored to be a part of this amazing and inspirational group of writers. As a member of this group, I’ll be sharing Cooking Light content with you twice per month.
I’ve subscribed to Cooking Light for more than ten years and I have many favorite recipes that I’ve found in it’s pages. Today I’m going to share what is probably my all-time favorite Cooking Light recipe: Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze. I vividly remember seeing this recipe the first time it appeared in the magazine because just glancing at the picture made me head out to the store to get the ingredients I needed to bake it. I’ve made it many times over the years, but it kind of fell off the radar for awhile there. Zach (my husband) is a banana bread lover and I make the classic CL banana bread pretty frequently, but he’s also a banana bread purist and he strongly prefers that I don’t “get jazzy” too often so I usually keep things pretty simple. When he took off for a work trip this week, I saw my opportunity to get all crazy by making this recipe and took it!
Coconut Banana Bread with Lime Glaze
recipe courtesy of Cooking Light
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (about 9 ounces)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)
- 1/4 cup plain low-fat yogurt (I substituted vanilla yogurt)
- 3 tablespoons dark rum (I only had golden rum and it worked fine)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup flaked sweetened coconut
- Cooking spray
- 1 tablespoon flaked sweetened coconut
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°.
Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt, stirring with a whisk.
Place granulated sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, rum, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist. Stir in 1/2 cup coconut. Spoon batter into a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray; sprinkle with 1 tablespoon coconut.
Bake at 350° for 1 hour (mine took closer to an hour and a half) or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Combine powdered sugar and juice, stirring with a whisk; drizzle over warm bread. Cool completely on wire rack.
The Verdict:
We did not allow this to cool completely on the wire rack before eating! It smelled so delicious and looked so yummy that the boys and I had to cut into it and each have a piece. I thought it was heavenly. The coconut gives it a nutty richness and then the lime glaze cuts through with a perfect burst of sweet acidity. The boys liked it, but they both picked the coconut off the top. I tried to explain to them the the bread itself was loaded with the stuff, but they didn’t seem to care about that — they just kept eating the bread and picking off the visible coconut. Heh.
How about you? Are you a banana bread purist? Or do you like to shake things up?
