Can I let you in on a secret? It’s a little something I’ve realized as I’ve bookmarked and dog-eared a zillion different recipes for baked goods. Here it is: you don’t really need a ton of different recipes to be a great baker.
Us food bloggers and recipe developers churn out separate recipes for every tasty variation, but the truth is that there’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time. If you focus on finding the best base recipe, you’ll inevitably learn a lot about how ingredients and substitutions work together in the process. Once you’ve found that stellar base recipe, you can change it up to suit your whims thereafter. All of those other recipes floating around can inspire your next variation on your base recipe.
Take this banana “trail mix” bread, for instance. The base recipe originated from one of my favorite, most reliable recipe sources, Deb of Smitten Kitchen. (Always start with recipes from trustworthy sources.) She posted her double coconut muffins and mentioned that we could substitute mashed bananas for the yogurt in her recipe. Eureka!
That little nugget of substitution wisdom led to my whole wheat, honey-sweetened banana coconut muffins, a variation on her original that I really love. Then those muffins turned into the base for this loaf of bread, to which I added chopped, dried fruit and nuts, and substituted oats for some of the flour.
Want more examples? These banana oat pancakes turned into blueberry lemon yogurt pancakes when I substituted yogurt for banana. My all-time favorite basic banana bread recipe turned into pumpkin bread when I substituted pumpkin purée for the mashed banana and added extra warming spices. This maple-sweetened cranberry cornbread could turn into cheesy honey-jalapeño cornbread (sub honey for the maple syrup and mix in finely chopped jalapeño and cheese). My blueberry muffins could easily be cranberry-orange muffins or blackberry-thyme muffins. The same goes for these yogurt scones and this maple tea cake. If you love the base and the add-ins, you’ll more than likely love the result.
For even more variation inspiration, please check out my notes on natural sweetener substitutions in this quick molasses bread post, and all the marvelous suggestions in the comments on my banana bread and pumpkin bread posts. I get so giddy when you all try out my recipes and report back with your substitution notes and results. Thank you, sweet commenters, for sharing inspiration and suggestions with the rest of us.
I’m eager to hear how you change up this recipe to suit your taste and nutrition preferences. I’ll share what I think might work well in case it sparks an idea for you. Feel free to leave out any of the add-ins, but do include the coconut flakes as I believe them to be integral to the batter. Substitute any other kind of nuts for the pecans, any other dried fruits for the cherries and candied ginger, and any kind of chocolate or chocolate chips for the chopped dark chocolate. You could leave out the cinnamon and add lemon zest a brighter flavor, or substitute another natural sweetener for the honey.
I bet you could use melted butter instead of coconut oil (that swap generally works great), yogurt instead of banana (keep in mind that the resulting bread will be less sweet) or gluten-free flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour (I would guess gluten-free flour would work well because there isn’t a ton of flour to begin with). If you make any of these substitutions, please report back and let us know how it turns out!
- 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/2 cup oats
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon table salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, divided
- 1/3 cup chopped candied ginger
- 1/3 cup chopped dried cherries or cranberries
- 1/2 cup pecans, toasted and chopped
- 1/4 cup chopped dark chocolate (about 1.5 ounces, you may sub chocolate chips)
- 1/2 cup virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1 cup ripe banana, mashed
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 large egg, preferably at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon turbinado (raw) sugar
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan (see note below on how to make muffins).
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in 1/2 cup shredded coconut, then mix in the chopped ginger, dried fruit, pecans and dark chocolate.
- In a separate, medium bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, mashed banana, honey, egg and vanilla.*
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into your prepared loaf pan and sprinkle with the remaining 1/4 cup coconut. Top with a light sprinkle of turbinado (raw) sugar.
- Bake for until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes or longer. Let the bread cool in the pan before slicing. This bread is dense and not very easy to slice; I found that my sharp paring knife worked better than a serrated bread knife.
- Adapted from my banana coconut muffins, where were originally adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Double Coconut Muffins.
- If you want to make muffins, grease your muffin tin or line with muffin liners. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes or longer, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Yields about 12 muffins.
- *If your coconut oil goes back to its solid state when you’re stirring the batter, just warm the mixture for short 30 second bursts in the microwave, stirring between each, just until it is melted again.
- If you’re in the market for a quality, non-toxic loaf pan, I love my Le Creuset stoneware loaf pan
(shown above). It heats evenly and cleans easily. Highly recommended!
38 Comments
I might need to make this today. God you’re good at making me hungry, girl!
Looks so tasty, I am so hungry right now and this isnt helping! xx
I am not even kidding you when I say I was just thinking I wish somebody would post a new banana recipe because I have four bananas in my freezer just waiting to be used! Pinned! Making this tomorrow!
Perfect! Hope you love this bread, please do let me know how it turns out.
Pretty bread, I’m loving that coconut sprinkle!
I imagine this is how most bakers do it…just have a few solid bases that they then use to mix and match flavors. It’s all the experimenting to get to the solid base that’s the hard part! Or we can just let Deb do it for us :P This trail mix bread sounds delicious. I love all those mix-ins!
This looks UNREAL Kate!
It looks really great and tasteful !
Love this! And it’s so true – a great base can lead to millions of variations. This certainly seems like a great base to play around with. I’m always looking for riffs on banana bread!
Oh my! This is exactly what I need. Yum!
Yum!! Trail mix bread? Sign me up!
Can I substitute with coconut flour?
Hi!
Is there something I can sub for the egg to make this vegan? Looks delicious!
Thanks,
Claire
I used a flax egg (1T ground flax, 3T water) and it worked wonderfully. I also subbed molasses for the honey as it is surprisingly a great vegan substitute for other sweeteners. Yum!
I can’t wait to make this!,, I love healthy-good for you- foods!
Great array of add-ins…really kicks banana bread up a notch! I’m definitely making this soon. Thanks Kate :)
You had me at the coconut on top, but the rest has my mouth watering relentlessly! I’ve got some ripe bananas that I need to use, so I will be making a version of this most likely today. Thanks for the inspiration!
mmmmm! This looks stellar. I will definitely need to try this using a mix of almond flour and coconut flour. I’ll let you know how it goes.
I think this bread looks and sounds divine! I am looking forward to making it!
I think some of my most favorite baked good options I’m currently circulating through have come from your site. I love that they give some amazing flavors without tons of sugar, or even flour. And with them easily being successful for everyone, I know they’re trustworthy. There is nothing worse than preparing a much anticipated recipe only to take one bite and throw the entire thing in the trash. A recent batch of muffins ended up that way; inedible. This bread, even in it’s current state without one substitution, would be devoured in our house. And I can’t wait to make it and have that happen. Thanks so much for what you do, your encouragement and beautiful, tasty recipes.
I have to admit that Deb from Smitten Kitchen always has GREAT recipes. Her site is so reliable. Knowing all that… this has to be great. Better than great. :-) Pinning!!
Amazing recipe! Banana bread with a twist, I love it ;) I’ll give it a go and if I come up with any delicious additions or substitutions for the recipe I’ll let you know!
Thanks!
Love this post! And I hope I make this loaf for breakfast soon!!
Followed the recipe without the ginger because we didn’t have any, They came out perfect and highly recommend people making them instead if just pinning stuff…this is a must make!
Thank you, Tami! It’s so nice to hear from people who have made my recipes. You might also like my banana oat pancakes.
Baked this last night. Delicious! What a great banana bread variation. I loved it, especially with the toasted coconut on top. I think if I leave out the ginger next time, it might have a more universal appeal.
Thanks, Azure! My friend said the topping is like coconut crème bruelée, I think she’s right! Good point on the ginger. I just can’t get enough of the stuff.
I made the muffins with a few (quite a lot) of substituions! Not for any dietary reasons, just because of what I had in the house. I swapped the ginger for dates, raisins for cranberries, nuts for mixed seeds and a couple of flaked almonds, and no chocolate. I only put in half the amount of honey too – and no sugar. They turned out amazing! Perfect sweetness, and nice and filling too! I’ll definitely be making these agin with whatever else I have in the house.
Your bread sounds great, Anna! Thanks for sharing your substitutions, they really go along with the “trail mix” theme!
I made these as muffins and the combination of flavors is AMAZING! I have been wanting to make these for a few weeks now but was out of candied ginger. In the meantime, I made your whole wheat pumpkin-honey loaf and that was a big hit with my children – my second loaf is baking now as they have asked me to make it again. Thanks for the great recipes, looking forward to trying more.
Thanks, Terri! I’m so glad you enjoyed the combination of flavors. I’m a big fan! I’m happy to hear that you and your family are enjoying my recipes.
Just put a loaf of this in the oven- added a quarter teaspoon of cloves and mixed in pecans, dried pears, dried figs and candied ginger, and replaced a quarter cup of the oats with quinoa flakes. I also used spelt flour. So excited- it’s my one-exam-to-go treat!
Thank you for commenting, Kathleen! I hope this bread was just what you needed to get through your last exam. Your substitutions sound great (I can’t find dried pears around here, they’re sooo good).
I just made this in muffin form for my boyfriend to take to his potluck Saturday at a 50k he is running. Thought the folks there could use these muffins to refuel! I am cooling them now, it’s Tuesday. If I cool them completely and put them in the freezer in plastic storage bags, should he pull them out still frozen Saturday morning to take? The potluck is after the run. Do you think they are just as good after freezing? I’m a baking newbie. Thanks!!!
Hey Amy, that’s a really good question. I think that I would just let the muffins cool, then store the muffins in a plastic storage bag in the refrigerator. That way they won’t go through such a harsh temperature change. I think they will last just fine that way until Saturday.
Hi Kate, these muffins were an enormous hit at his potluck! I made 2 dozen and took them to him on Tuesday. By Saturday morning he only had a dozen left to take! :) I guess he had no guilt since he was running 31 miles that day! Thanks! I am making the banana coconut muffins tonight!
This looks amazing! If I want to omit the nuts and ginger, what can I use as a substitute or increase to balance the recipe out? Thanks!
Hi Kara, you could just omit the nuts and ginger and bake it that way. I know the bread will turn out well without them. You could add more dried fruit, I suppose.
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