Chocolate coconut banana muffin

I don't crave chocolate all the time but there are times when I crave something sweet. And today I craved chocolate and coconut.
I LOVE coconut. And chocolate and coconut combo is a big hit with me.
And I had planned on baking banana loaf anyway I thought it would be awesome to have all three together. If you are reading this and salivating, you need to try this recipe.

I looked for chocolate coconut banana muffin and this is the best one I found. There were other recipes but lot of them called for self rising flour and I didn't have any at home. But apparently after looking up what the difference between self rising and all purpose flour is, I found out that I can easily making self rising flour from a regular flour by mixing in baking soda and salt to the flour.
 But this has to be done precisely for it to work. If I am ever in need of a self rising flour I know what to do next time.

Getting back to the muffin, I used frozen bananas instead of fresh ones. I always have a one or two bananas that are too ripe whenever I buy bananas and instead of chucking them out, I save them by tossing them into the freezer. I also put in 2 tablespoons of sour cream because I had little bit left in the fridge that i didn't want to waste and thought they might make the muffins more moist. I am not sure if it made any difference but they sure tasted good to me.

DRY:
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt

WET:

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons melted butter
2 Tbsp. Sour cream
3 ripe bananas
1/2 cup medium sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes


Beat the butter and the sugar first until it is thoroughly mixed. Add egg and mash in the bananas. Add the chocolate chips and coconut.
Add the dry ingredient into the wet and mix. Don't over mix at this point.



Divide it into the muffin cups and bake at 350F for 30 minutes. This produced 13 muffins using this recipe.

They are not too sweet and so delicious. You can easily substitute coconut for other dry fruits if desired.

Gluten free Chocolate coconut pie

When I saw this awesome recipe on how to make coconut crust chocolate pie, I was thrilled. I love coconut and combined with chocolate, this was heaven on a pie plate.

And I had a perfect excuse to make this pie when my mother-in-law came over for dinner. She has celiac and isn't supposed to eat gluten. She ignored this up until few months ago because she loved bread and all the things that contains gluten and who doesn't? Long story short, I wanted to make this pie for her since the pie crust is made of coconut, not flour therefore making it a gluten free dessert.

This pie is super easy to make. This recipe is from Sweet Twist of Blogging

Recipe:

CRUST
6 cups of shredded unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. of softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 350F. In a food processor, process butter and one-third of coconut and sugar until mixture forms a ball or starts to stick together, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl. Combine this mixture with the remaining two-thirds coconut using your hands to bring together the coconut.




FILLING
1 cup heavy cream
8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped (60% cacao) I used medium sweet chocolates because I didn't have any bittersweets on hand and it tasted good. Next time I am going to try making it with bittersweet chocolates though.

Press coconut mixture into bottom and up sides of pan to form crust, leaving top edges loose and fluffy. Cover the crust lightly with tin foil over the edges, and cut a hole in the center. Keeping the edges covered to prevent burning. Bake until center begins to brown, 10 to 15 minutes; remove foil and bake until edges are browned, 4 to 5 minutes more. Transfer crust to a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the filling: In a small sauce pan bring cream just to a boil. While cream is heating up, place chopped chocolate into a medium heatproof bowl. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let sit for 10 minutes to allow chocolate to melt. Stir to combine and melt remaining chocolate. The mixture should be smooth and completely melted. Pour into coconut crust. Refrigerate until filling is set, 1 hour or up to 1 day.


I didn't have to use 6 cups of the coconut. I used about 3.5 cups of coconut and that was sufficient. And I used medium sweet chocolate instead of bittersweet chocolate because I didn't have any.

This pie is decadent and perfect for that time when you are craving chocolate. And combined with coconut, it totally tastes like Bounty chocolate bar.

The dinner went really well. I cooked chicken teriyaki with rice thinking that it was gluten free. WRONG! Next day, we get a call from mother-in-law asking what kind of soy sauce I used to make the sauce for the teriyaki. I take a look at the ingredients on the soy sauce container and second ingredient listed is Wheat. Alas, who knew? I certainly didn't. My carefully well planned gluten free meal didn't quite turn out as I wanted it to.


At least, the dessert turned out fabulous.

I will write another post with this great Teriyaki sauce recipe I found. So easy to make and way better than the ones you buy in store.