Skinny Coconut Banana Bread

Story of my life here:  I went to the grocery store last Sunday with great plans to drink a green smoothie every morning for breakfast.  So I bought a bunch of 5 bananas.  Friday rolls around and I haven't had one smoothie all week (there is something about running the blender at 6:15am that just doesn't sit well with me); and now the eternal question:  Do I save the bananas in the hopes of making banana bread sometime soon or do I bite the bullet and throw them out?

If you're with me in this and pondering what you should do with those dang bananas, save them and make this Skinny Coconut Banana Bread sometime soon!  If they aren't too far gone, you can throw them in the fridge and buy yourself a couple more days before they get super mushy and yucky.  I've also heard you can mash the bananas and then freeze them?  I'm not a fan of freezer bananas, so attempt at your own risk.

Anywho, when you're ready, grab your ingredients and let's get baking!

For this bread you'll need:

• 1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 3 Large ripe bananas, mashed
• ½ cup + 2 tablespoons sweetened flaked coconut
• ½ tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup of brown sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut milk
• ¼ cup fat free plain Greek yogurt
• ¼ cup light orange juice

First, things first - preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Once you've started your oven, combine all your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda).

Then, grab your bananas and mash those suckers.  Mashing bananas is probably the only time I wish for a potato masher.

Once the bananas are all mashed up, add in the brown sugar and vanilla.

Add in the egg whites and then mix it up.

Now it's time to add in the oil.  I imagine you could substitute applesauce for the oil to make this recipe even skinnier; but I didn't try it because I am a fraidy-cat and not following recipes makes me nervous.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that my hands NEVER look like that when I'm baking by myself.  They were posing.  My hands are so vain!

Once the oil is in and mixed up, slowly add in the flour and mix until just combined.  It's ok if it's a little lumpy.

My batter looked like this when I was done mixing in the flour:

Next up is the Greek yogurt and OJ.

The recipe says if you like dense bread to omit the milk.  I added one tablespoon of coconut milk; and if I make this again, I will add the second tablespoon.  This bread comes out VERY dense.  As in, you could probably use it as a blanket dense.

Now all that's left is the coconut.  Measure out a half a cup of coconut and then fold it into the batter.  If you like nuts, you could add those in at this point too.

It's go time!  Pour the batter into a 9x5 loaf pan and top it with coconut.  The recipe says two tablespoons, but no one's counting.

Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.   

Do yourself a favor, while this bread is still warm, cut yourself a piece and put a little spray butter on it.  It's fantastic.  And at roughly 100 calories per slice, it's pretty much guilt free.  Dude, it's got bananas in it, that means it can't be bad for you, right?

Now, word of warning, do NOT leave this bread unattended on the counter while it's cooling.  If you do happen to run downstairs for 15 seconds to get a roll of paper towels from the laundry room, you may come back upstairs and find this -

And when you turn around you will see this guilty (defiant?) face -

Background Noise for This Project:  Parks & Recreation, Season 3:  Episode 12:  Eagleton and 13: The Fight