Lightly Boozy Pina Colada Bread for #TwelveLoaves

Seeing that this is a month of celebration, it was not a huge surprise to learn that the theme for this month's Twelve Loaves challenge was... booze.

Yup - the idea was to bake a bread, yeasted, sourdough, quick or other, somehow incorporating wine, spirits or some other alcohol product.

Fun!

Except that we don't really drink much in our house, so I was totally not quite sure where to start with this one. So I waited. And waited. And almost missed out. Until pineapples went on sale at the food store. And as I was cutting one up for a snack, inspiration finally hit.

On a cold, snowy, day-after-Christmas afternoon, what could be better than a tropical vacation? And what is more tropical than a pina colada?

Boom.

Pina colada quick bread. Don't hold the rum. Or the fun paper drink umbrella.

A few google searches later and I settled on this recipe, but made a couple of changes. For starters, instead of all of those extracts, I used a quarter cup of vanilla rum. And secondly, I chopped up my fresh pineapple rather than using the canned, crushed variety. And finally, rather than using all white sugar, I mixed it up and used some brown sugar, too. Oh, and I omitted the maraschino cherries because I am not a fan.

And it worked out deliciously.

The breads stuck to the pans way more than I'd have liked, which made them a little less presentable than I'd have liked, but what it lacked in beauty it made up for in flavor. Each bite was a little taste of the tropics and everyone in the house loved it.

Pina Colada Bread
(slightly adapted from Quick Bread Recipes)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups oil
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vanilla rum
1/4 cup pineapple juice
1 cup fresh pineapple, chopped small
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Grease and flour well two 7 x 4-inch loaf pans.
In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon and set aside.
In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Stir in oil and sugars. Add rum and pineapple juice.
Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and mix just until ingredients are moistened.
Gently fold in the chopped pineapple and coconut. Do not stir too much or bread will be heavy.
Pour into prepared loaf pans.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted comes out clean.
Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pans.

Enjoy!