I bought some (not very) discounted bananas in honor of Miss Becca Boo’s birthday and had a bunch (ha-ha) left over, so I decided to make some banana bread.

While I grew up with a very good banana cake recipe in the house, when I want to make a banana bread I turn to Orangette. She is crazy for banana bread. I have tried a couple of her recipes, but the one that is my favorite, the one that I made yesterday, is what I’m going to share with you.

It’s a basic banana bread with just a touch of fancy. The rum, coconut, and demerara sugar add to, not detract from, the overall banana-ness of the bread. I tried tossing some dark Ghirardelli chips into one of the loaves, but decided that it wasn’t my thing—the chocolate overpowered the smooth banana-ness. (The banana-ness is really important to me, if you can’t tell). But, you never know, it might be your thing (along with toasted pecans maybe?), so go ahead and give it a shot.

The recipe calls for dark rum, but I just used the light stuff that I had on hand. Demerara sugar is just a cane sugar—it has bigger crystals, is light tan in color, and adds a delicious crunch to the bread’s top crust.

This recipe makes one loaf of bread, but I like to make several little loaves, wrap them in plastic and store them in the freezer. Then they are ready to go for whenever I need them: to serve to surprise company, to give one away as a gift for someone who does me a favor (quit jumping up and down and waving your arms in the air—you have to do something for me to get a loaf, silly—like…babysit all of my kids), to treat my hungry children, etc.

Banana Coconut Bread
Adapted from Orangette‘s blog

Updated on April 17, 2018: Increase the salt to 1 teaspoon (I made the change in the recipe).

3 large bananas (to make 1 ½ cups puree)
1 stick butter
1 cup white sugar
1/8 teaspoon white vinegar
1 ½ tablespoons rum
2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated
1 teaspoon salt
½ cup coconut
1-2 tablespoons demerara sugar

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the vinegar and rum. Add the banana puree, and then the flour, baking soda, nutmeg and salt. Gently stir in the coconut. Pour the batter into one large, well-greased loaf pan, generously sprinkle the top with the demerara sugar, and bake at 350 degrees for 45-65 minutes.

Our kitchen windows are marvelous. They look out over the back of our property (which is actually our entire property since the house sits at the front of the property) to the mountain ridge behind us. They also face west, so they let in a ton of light which is a good thing, but towards evening the light can get brutal, and that is not a good thing. Especially in the summer, the heat pours in and makes supper prep and clean-up a literal headache.

Before we even moved into this house, we could foresee this problem. I wanted to buy some blinds for the windows, but Mr. Handsome didn’t want just any old cheap blinds, and the nicer ones were really expensive. Plus, our windows were odd shapes and we would have to have them cut to size which was just one more task that we didn’t feel like doing. So, logically, we didn’t do anything. We’ve been suffering for nearly three years now.

However! I married an ingenious man. When I can’t stand the heat anymore, I just holler his name, and he comes running to hang up his Curtain Creation.

Our make-shift (cheap!) blinds add a certain ambiance, no?

Now that summer’s here, we’ve gotten into the habit of shipping our kids off to relatives’ houses. They take turns, all but The Baby Nickel, going to Grandaddy and Grandmommy’s house, and now they are taking turns staying with my Balding Bro and his Gentle Wife. Here is Sweetsie, heading off to their house for two whole nights all by herself, as pleased as punch with her lot in life.