banana-coconut bread for my sweetheart

My sweetheart is vegan. Pretty much, at least. He does eat fish, and he willingly eats eggs too, though very occasionally. The no-dairy rule is the one he adheres to most strictly and the one that often gets overlooked when he can't resist sampling my baking. I don't blame him, but I love my butter. I would like to be able to support his longstanding decision, so I'm always on the lookout for delicious vegan recipes that I feel as good about feeding him as I do about eating myself. It's always nice to have options in my baking arsenal, and this is one recipe that you'd be surprised to learn is vegan if no one told you - it's that delicious.

As far as what fat to use in vegan baking, that is a bit of a quandary. Coconut oil is a great option to replace the butter, definitely way better than canola oil, which is NOT GOOD FOR YOU. At all. Despite the marketing various industries have done to convince us that it is. It is a highly-refined food, the likes of which I avoid as often as possible. Pure, virgin canola oil is a deep green and actually fragrant, almost grassy. To eradicate its odor and remove the vibrant color, it is processed, dyed and deodorized, and probably irradiated, reprocessed, and more. All of that renders it odorless and with an appealing high smoke point, so it is a workable substitute for butter to make moist vegan cakes and does make a capable high-heat frying oil. But I've not been victim to the great con, and I try to allow junk like that into my mouth as infrequently as possible, so I really try to avoid cooking with it. I try to stick with what I know to be healthful fats for my cooking: butter, virgin organic coconut oil, ghee and olive oil.

Unlike butter, coconut oil has a strong and distinctive flavor that might not complement the flavor of what you're baking, but I'd been trying to work it into my repertoire because I think it's just so yummy, and I've heard it's pretty good for you. When I read about a banana-coconut bread recipe from a book I own and love, my radar went off. It was eggless, and muffin and cake recipes without any eggs are few and far between, so I perk up whenever I see one. Surprisingly, you don't always need eggs to bake a cake - or anything to replace them either.

And it was meant to taste of coconut. Perfect! And indeed, the use of healthful unrefined coconut oil in this bread is genius. It is also genius to use really ripe bananas, as then you don't need any sugar to make this bread sweet and tasty. The original recipe called for an entire cup of sugar, but honestly, it is sweet enough for me without it that I can't really imagine it with it. Perhaps my sweet tooth isn't as sweet as yours though, so especially if your bananas aren't ripe enough that they are super sweet, I suppose you could add up to 1/2 cup sugar to the batter. Do what feels good to you, but I hope you try doing what I did, which is keeping the bananas holed up in a brown paper bag for a week while they await their fate and turn almost black, getting sickly sweet and soft in the process.

I try to avoid the "sugar blues" - you didn't know that aside from all of its other ill-effects, processed, concentrated sugar affects your mood? - so this recipe makes what to me is the perfect mid-morning or afternoon snack. It's whole-grain to boot (you choose the flours you use) and is full of immune-boosting virgin coconut oil. Let me know what you think if you try it!


Vegan Banana Coconut Bread

As far as flour is concerned, this recipe is pretty forgiving. You can use all purpose white flour if that's all you have, but I prefer whole wheat if possible. Spelt would also work fine, as would sprouted spelt flour if that's up your alley. The most recent batch I made was half white whole wheat flour and half whole wheat pastry flour, and it was tender as can be and pretty light. The texture will vary with the different flours, but it will always be yummy. The oats and flax contribute a nubbly texture that is really appealing.

Coconut oil is solid at temperatures below 76 degrees, so you need to melt it for this recipe. I usually stick the glass jar of oil in the oven as it is preheating, just until it's melted, and then remove it carefully. Don't worry if you have a few drips while measuring it out, just rub the oil into your hands - it's a fabulous moisturizer!

1/2 cup rolled oats
2 or 3 Tbsp ground flax, optional
1 2/3 cups flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon sea salt
4 medium-sized or 3 large, overripe bananas
1/2 cup virgin coconut oil, liquefied
1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ Tbsp. rum
up to 1/2 cup sugar, unrefined if possible (like Sucanat, Rapadura, or Alter-Eco)
½ cup dried shredded unsweetened coconut
1 Tbsp. demerara sugar, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush melted coconut oil onto the inside of your loaf pan to coat it lightly.

Put the oat flakes into a medium bowl, and use your fingers to break them up into small pieces, a gritty flour of sorts. Alternately, pule them a few times in a food processor. This adds great texture to the bread. Then add the flax if using, the flour, baking soda, nutmeg, and salt as well.

Blend the bananas till smooth in a food processor if you have one. If not, mash well with a potato masher till smooth in a large bowl. Once smooth, run the machine to blend in the coconut oil, the vinegar, vanilla, and rum, or stir thoroughly. Add the sugar at this stage if you are using it. Then add in the flour mixture and blend until everything is incorporated. Then add in the coconut and pulse a few times or stir well.

Scrape the mixture into the pan. As much as I am against sugar, I do love sprinkling on demerara sugar here to create a sparkly crust over the top of the loaf, so sprinkle it evenly over the batter. Bake for about 45 minutes or longer, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out free of crumbs.