How to Dress Up a Loaf of Banana Bread

Bake this: Coconut Banana Bread. And make it your own with any of the genius mix-ins and ingredient upgrades below. - McCormick Test Kitchens

If you have a couple of ripe bananas and an egg and some flour, you can make banana bread. You can even do it without a recipe. And any well-baked (by which we mean moist, slightly underdone, and richly banana-sweet) loaf will win the hearts and minds of anyone within a whiff's distance.

But sometimes you find yourself wanting more. "More" meaning coconut or ginger or chocolate chips or sesame seeds or you-name-it—going beyond the traditional (though certainly not ho-hum) walnut addition. (Chef Camille Becerra put some ginger and coconut and flax seeds in hers, below.)

Here's how to do it:

Grab a few bananas on your way home from work tonight, throw them in the freezer, and survey your pantry: There's never been a better time to use up odds and ends. Banana bread is the perfect safe space for experimentation. Tomorrow, when you bake the bread, you'll know that with the blank canvas that it is, you'll be able to taste the added splotches of espresso or cardamom or tahini all the more vividly. (If you need a blank canvas, this is a very good one.)

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Stir espresso powder—and/or good old espresso—into the batter
Line your baking pan with flax seed, like Camille Becerra
Or finely grind tea (like a black tea or chai) and add it to the batter
Give it a streusel! Maybe this peanut-buttery streusel
Swirl a ribbon of brown butter through the pan
Give the batter a shot of bourbon (or rum)
Make the loaf a brown butter and boozy one
Roast your bananas before mashing them for a caramely dimension
Amp up the banana flavor. This recipe uses 5 bananas!
Add a bit of curry powder, like these banana cookies do
Make it grey, with help from black sesame
Go wild with chocolate—add cocoa powder or chips (standard semisweet or something like butterscotch) to the batter
Stir in a heck of a lot of seeds
Give it a creamy nuttiness with tahini (à la New York restaurant El Rey)
Sub in some of the batter's vegetable oil or butter for another kind of oil—like pistachio or walnut
Spice it darkly and warmly with molasses, brown sugar, ginger, and cloves