Chocolate Chip Coconut Banana Bread

So I've had an itch to make banana bread for a few days. Maybe because my kids have been super sick and I've been stuck in the house for 5 days. 😒 Maybe I've gone a little stir crazy.

Anyway, mental stability aside, I looked in my cabinets and found that I had a hodge podge of ingredients but nothing to do with them.  Baking soda-check, baking powder-check, brown sugar-check (and not hard as a rock-SCORE!), flour-check, 1/4 of a bag of chocolate chips-check. I scanned my counter; bananas-check.  I perused the interweb for some interesting-looking recipes and came across this one from Five Heart Home. I thought, "Looks terrific! I'll do it!"  I began gathering my supplies, but said to myself, "Self, you can't make this recipe your own if you don't tweak it just a bit. No harm, no foul, right??" Weeeellll........Turns out tweaking something in baking is NOT. A. GOOD. IDEA. If you click the link above 👆you will find the recipe from Five Heart Home. Below I will put my poorly thought out substitutions.

1. Instead of all-purpose flour, I had Red Mill Organic Coconut Flour
2. Instead of light brown sugar, I used Wholesome Organic Coconut Palm Sugar. I mean, it's brown so why not, right? 
3. I also took the liberty to add some cinnamon and a pinch of cloves. 
4. Last but not least, I only used 2 bananas instead of 3-4.

OK, so I literally only made 4 changes! I didn't think it would do much damage. Boy was I wrong. The fact that coconut flour more closely resembles baby formula than actual flour should have tipped me off.  

My second indicator that something had gone awry was that my "batter" looked more like cookie dough.  

According to the recipe, I was to bake the bread for 55-60 minutes at 350 degrees. I set my timer for 50 minutes but checked after 30 minutes and the coconut was browning nicely, so I let it go for another 10 minutes. I decided to pull the loaf pan out after 40 minutes because it was nice and golden around the edges. When the knife came out clean, I felt confident I made the right decision. 

After cooling for a painful 5 minutes, I cut myself a slice. I could smell the warm, gooey chocolate chips and the toasted coconut and my salivary glands went into overdrive.  I took my first bite and nearly choked. As a matter of fact, I think I still have that bite lodged in my throat somewhere. It was so dense and dry that I instantly ran to the dinner table and took a huge swig of water just so I could get it down. 

Immediately disappointed in myself (I'm a half-decent baker, after all-just ask my husband), I thought the first bite was dry simply because it was the crust. I figured it got a little overcooked and decided to take another bite from the center.  Same involuntary gag reflex. Same dreadful realization. Do not stray from the recipe in baking. "But how do bakers create their own, mind-blowing recipes no one has ever thought of??" Apparently they do more research than I did on their ingredient substitutions. Also, they probably add more bananas. 

**If you have made the chocolate coconut banana bread recipe from Five Heart Home, let me know. I'd love to try it because it looks super tasty! I just need to replenish my baking supplies.**