Yesterday morning, my dear friend Van Island Gal’s Facebook status was “chocolate, coconut, banana bread for breakfast, don’t mind if I do!!”

I knew I had to have it.  She was kind enough to send me over her recipe, and let me know she’d also added some coconut and cinnamon.

I opened Google, found a calculator, and set about trying to convert it to a coconut flour recipe .   The sweetener ratio stumped me, because of the wet bananas – so I googled banana to sugar conversions.

I was certain I’d blown it when it took 25 minutes longer to cook than I thought it would.  Crap!

But, it smelled amazing!  Finally, close to 11 pm last night, I cut the first slice, slathered it in butter, and took a big bite.

It was… okay.  Kind of more salty than really sweet, and I started kicking myself for trying pureed dates instead of honey, and figured I’d messed up my banana-sweetener ratio.  I was a little sad, but determined to enjoy it.

Got out another piece and sprinkled a bit of stevia on top of the butter.
So much better!

Then this morning I decided I’d have some with my breakfast, and take a pic for the blog while I was at it.  For the photo, I skipped the butter.

It was way too nice outside to go back inside for butter, so I took a big bite and…

Suddenly… IT WAS PERFECT.
That is how I learned that I, personally, no longer like butter.

COCONUT FLOUR BANANA BREAD WITH DARK CHOCOLATE & ALMONDS

What you need…

1/2 c coconut flour (I’m using Wilderness Family Naturals from Nature’s Fare)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ginger
3 ripe, mashed bananas (I found perfect extra ripe ones in the 50% bin at Extra Foods)
1/3 cup coconut manna, melted (or butter, coconut oil, margarine – I like Earth Balance)
6 eggs
2 Tbsp liquid sweetener (I ran boiling water over about 8 Medjool dates then strained & pureed them, but you could use honey, maple syrup, or agave.  You could try granulated sweetener too but would probably have to add in more liquid)
2 tsp vanilla (I used my no alcohol Trader Joe’s)
1/4 c crushed almonds (or any other nut)
100g bar of dark chocolate, crumbled (I used a bar of 85% cocoa dark chocolate, you could use chocolate chips too)
1/4 cup dried, unsweetened coconut (optional)




What I did…


Sifted my coconut flour into a big bowl (it gets a little clumpy), and added in the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and sea salt.

In a smaller bowl, combined the mashed bananas, manna, eggs, dates, and vanilla, then added mixture to my big bowl of dry stuff.  Stirred well to combine and folded in the almonds, chocolate, and coconut.

Poured the batter (it’ll be very wet but don’t worry) into a loaf pan lined with parchment paper (you could always just grease the pan too), and baked at 350F for around 70 minutes – until the knife I inserted came out clean.

And let me tell you, it is divine.
(Especially without butter, if you’re me.)