Chocolate-covered frozen bananas are one of the simplest desserts to make, and the outcome is always delicious. The rich, cocoa exterior deepens the fruit beautifully, making for a consistently mouth-watering flavor. While the dessert is always incredible flavor-wise, the texture doesn’t always turn out the best. To give your chocolate-covered bananas the best coating possible, use coconut oil.
When melting chocolate for frozen fruit, there are a few things that can cause the candy’s texture to go awry; the chocolate may seize or develop a grainy feel that looks less than stellar on the bananas. It may not harden quickly enough, too, making you wait forever to enjoy the treat. As simple as it is, coconut oil can prevent all these problems from ruining your dessert. The fat provides chocolate with a smooth feel during the melting process, and it’s also perfect for fixing seized chocolate.
Since it solidifies at only 75 degrees Fahrenheit, the coconut oil helps the chocolate to harden quickly, providing the bananas with a smooth, shiny coating that sets in no time. To make the coconut oil-enhanced chocolate coating, use 1 tablespoon of coconut oil for every cup of chocolate. Add the two together to a bowl and melt them in the microwave using 30-second increments, or on the stovetop via the double boiler method. Once the chocolate is melted, dip the frozen bananas inside and set the fruits onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet before returning them to the freezer for 10 minutes.
What kind of coconut oil should you use when melting chocolate?
If you’re stuck between unrefined vs. refined coconut oil, think about the overall flavor you want your chocolate-covered bananas to have. Refined coconut oil is pretty neutral, which is perfect for experimenting with a range of ingredients without worrying that they’ll taste too much like the tropical fruit. You can go with classic chopped nuts, or spruce things up with rainbow sprinkles, flaky sea salt, drizzled caramel, or cinnamon sugar.
As its name may suggest, unrefined coconut oil tastes more authentically like the fruit it’s derived from. It has a nutty, mildly sweet taste that works well with bananas, making the combination the very definition of a tropical treat. You can lean into the pairing with crushed macadamia nuts, toasted coconut flakes, chopped pieces of dried mango, papaya, and pineapple, or even candied ginger.
When choosing between unrefined and refined coconut oil, you should also remember the sort of chocolate you’ll be using. The nuttiness of the unrefined version may work well with milk chocolate’s taste, but if you want all the bold, unadulterated flavor of dark chocolate, stick with the refined kind.
