Secret Recipe Club – Choco-Coco Banana Rum Bread

Time for another round of Secret Recipe Club! It's oh so much fun. I recently cleaned out our freezer and found what amounted to a whole bunch of bananas, frozen. Now I've done banana on here before. Rather frequently, actually. But I have never had a banana bread recipe. Which is weird! Because it's like, the most basic thing to do with speckly bananas. 

But they are just SO ugly. I will never get over that.

For my whole baking life I feel like I've been striving to achieve banana bread perfection. Nirvana, if you will. I've found recipes that were very tasty (I'm partial to this one) but I've never felt like "oh, this is it. My banana bread search is over". I have a funny feeling I will never reach that point. But I'm okay with that. Nothing wrong with continuing to strive for something elusive, something better.

 

My blog assignment this month was Robin, Restored and lo and behold, she had a banana bread recipe posted! And...it was from Joy the Baker. I know I promised I wouldn't post anything else from Joy's cookbook, but this was serendipitous. And I adapted it a little, adding some coconut and substituting bourbon (with which I was unfamiliar. Don't judge) with rum. Can't go wrong there. In my opinion, this bread tastes even better the second day. So be patient! 

Choco-Coco Banana Rum Bread

adapted from Joy the Baker, via Robin, Restored

2 cups flour 

 3 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1-1/2 cups mashed bananas (about 3 bananas)

3 Tbsp rum

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.
Sift flour and baking powder

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time to butter mixture. Add bananas, vanilla, and rum Mix well.
On low speed, add flour mixture.
Stir in chocolate chips and coconut.
Batter will be very thick. Spoon into prepared loaf pan.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until skewer comes out clean.
Remove from oven and cool about 20 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool completely.