Deliciousness: Banana Coconut Pecan Bread

I'm a huge bread fan. And when I say huge, I really mean huge. Give me bread in almost any form and I am a very, very happy girl. In fact, carbs in general are one of the main staples of my diet and half the time, I have to remind myself I need to eat other things, too.

Enter this loaf of banana bread. Not only is it the best banana bread I've ever had in my life, it's also one of my favorite bread recipes ever at this point; and that's saying something, since sweet breads aren't at the top of my crazy-bread-eating list of favorites.

Yum, even if it is a bit dark!

It's overcooked in these photos, unfortunately. I was housesitting for some friends of ours and you know how it is when you're working in an oven that's not your own, right? Well, let's just say I was happy this loaf didn't set the house on fire. Side note: I'd already managed to wreck these people's car avoiding what definitely would have been a fatal collision, so, you know - not burning down their house was basically priority #1 at that point. Long story short, use the biggest loaf pan you have and don't fill it too full, or you'll wind up scraping burnt gobs of bread batter off the bottom of your (or, *ahem*, someone else's) oven. But enough about my misadventures in Florida! On to the good stuff.

Plenty of good stuff to be had! Toasted coconut & pecans, anyone?

This recipe originally appeared over on the ModCloth blog, and it called for bacon. I love bacon, too, but I find it gets soggy if you cook it inside of something else, and as far as I'm concerned soggy bacon is almost as bad as burnt popcorn. I did cook a small loaf of this with bacon in it once, and it was well received, but I was too chicken to try it so now I just omit the bacon and use a cup of toasted pecans, instead. I also toast the coconut (which, by the way, can be sweetened OR unsweetened), but those are the only two things I've changed from the original recipe.

You can have this recipe in the oven in under 10 minutes, and that includes hauling out all your baking goods and mixing up the recipe. The result should be moist, nutty, just-sweet-enough bread that you'll have a hard time not gobbling up the moment you take it out of the oven. It'll stay moist and delicious for almost a week before it starts to go stale, but really - it's not going to last that long.

Find the original recipe (with non-burnt photos!) here.

When I make this, I use a 9-inch metal loaf pan and have enough batter left over to make a mini-loaf, too. Perfect for sharing with the neighbors or stashing in your office drawer for snack time!