Tropical-dreamin' banana bread.

4:02 PM

   Well, as I've said before (probably too many times by now) it's been raining lately....alot.  Gray, drizzly, cloudy, overcast, muddy, slushy, wet.   And my heart is aching for some sun.  I have a few bright spots shining out from my calendar as we are planning a trip to sunnier skies in a few months....but until then, I will only wait patiently and hope for spring!

   These gray, moody days always make me feel like baking.  Warming up my house with the oven and watching Randy's face light up when he comes home from work smelling something delicious.  And one of our favorite things to bake around here, hands down, is banana bread.

  Banana bread has always seemed to me like the sneakiest of baked goods because the banana makes you think that it's healthy and then you check the ingredient list and you're just like......yeah.  Not that healthy.  But it's delicious and it's the perfect coffee mate in the mornings and it smells delectable, wafting throughout your house.  And so why not?  Bake some banana bread.

   And so I'm happy to share with you today one of our all-time FAVORITE recipes, combining both the desire for sunnier, tropical skies, AND baking something delicious.  Plus it's kinda/sorta/a little bit healthy because of the yogurt (I use plain Greek) and the applesauce instead of oil.  You could even make it healthier by substituting stevia for the sugar, and more Greek yogurt instead of butter.  I haven't tried that yet, but it's a fun recipe to play around with!  Plus you could skip the glaze.  But that would be no fun at all.

Anyways, here it is:


2 C flour
3/4 tsp baking soda                                                                  Glaze:
1/2 tsp salt                                                                               1/2 C powdered sugar
1 C sugar                                                                                1 lime or 1 1/2 TBSP lime juice
1/4 C butter
2 eggs
About 3 bananas
1/4 C yogurt
3 TBSP applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla 
1/2 C coconut flakes
1 TBSP coconut to sprinkle on top

   Mash banana and eggs. Add butter and sugar and mix at medium speed for 1 min. Add rest of ingredients and mix well.  Last, add all dry ingredients and mix until moist.  

   Sprinkle with coconut and bake in loaf pan @ 340 for 55 mins-1 hr.  Remove from pan and drizzle with glaze.  Enjoy, and thank me later.

   All of the delicious baked goodness around here these days would be wonderful if it wasn't for the fact that this weather also makes me want to do absolutely nothing and bum around in my sweatpants all day.  



   These, to be specific. And it's all Bridget's fault!   If it wasn't for her, I would've never even known about them.  But now I have them and I want to sleep in them.  I want to lounge in them.  I want to bake in them.  I want to clean in them. I want to frame them and hang them up in a gallery of the World's Most Comfortable Sweats.  But I won't go to Wal-mart in them, folks. That is where I draw the line.  Way to much of that going on already.  But it's just no fun being lazy.  What are some of your rainy-day-every-day workout tips/motivations?!  Somedays it's hard enough to get dressed in this weather, (obviously some days I just don't) much less work out! 

   So anyway.  What do you do to pass the gray, rainy days??  Send me some of your favorite recipes/ideas!  We're all in this together.  

Well....except those of you in the south.  And we don't like you at all right now.    

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4 comments

  1. Oh....banana bread, yes. Yes! Maybe tomorrow I will make that. :)

    Cute sweats.

    It's supposed to snow here tonight. Bleh. :(

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  2. Love me some banana bread! I found a new recipe called Hawaiin Banana bread, using pineapple & Greek yogurt...absolutely love it! I think next time I need to add some coconut & kick the "Hawaiian" part up a notch :) Oh, and you can make a glaze with the leftover pineapple juice & powdered sugar...so moist & delicious! Now I need to go buy me some limes & try your version :) -Sherri Y.

    (I'm one of those southerners, but I thought if I give you a new version to try I could still join the conversation...yes? ;)

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  3. I keep wanting to make banana bread, but we keep eating all the bananas before they get to that awesome-super ripe-ooey-gooey stage. I've never tried a coconut-lime version before, but it sounds yum! I'll have to hide some bananas in the back of the pantry so I can get around to making it. :)

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  4. Made this and just COULD NOT GET ENOUGH of it. Hubs loved it, and I shared with my brother and his family--they insisted on taking half of the loaf home with them. Good thing I've got more speckled, gooey bananas getting soft in the house, or I might not have allowed that.
    I was so amazed at how easy the glaze was to make--simply juice & confectioners sugar? I never would have guessed. Delish!

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