While I was cleaning my house, a rare occurrence and one that usually means my computer is broken, I came across a pile of old magazines behind the couch in the front room.

Heavens knows why I have kept them but one, open at a recipe page, caught my eye. Chocolate Banana Coconut Bread in the pages of Australian Country Style, a magazine I rarely buy.

I know why I kept this issue, my Aunt Kathleen made a mean Banana Coconut Bread and there it was! Her recipe, ingredient by ingredient, step by step. I still have it in a tattered exercise book of recipes jotted down in my first year of marriage. But this time with the welcome addition of chocolate.

What you need :

• 1 large ripe banana, peeled and mashed
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup dessicated coconut
• 250g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
• 100g spreadable cream cheese, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease and flour a 19cm x 9cm x 6cm loaf pan. Mix together the mashed banana, vanilla, eggs and milk. Stir in the sugar. Sift the flour and baking powder over the wet ingredients. Add the coconut and gently fold through the mixture, using a large metal spoon.
2. Fold in the chocolate, being careful not to over-mix. Spoon into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool. Serve sliced with cream cheese.

Which reminds me, I have some notes on bananas ready to be compiled into a post.

Australian Country Style – March 2007