Something for the weekend: Banana Coconut Muffins

The weekend always starts with a wholesome, slightly lardy breakfast of smoked ham, fried eggs and lashings of syrup. Ok, maybe not every weekend... but we prefer to have naughty food to kick start the mornings.


I've got a whole loada ripe banana waiting to be used in my usual banana nut muffin, but I feel like mixing it up a bit and use coconut instead of nuts and oats. Yum!

Found an awesome recipe which had lots of positive reviews from Recipezaar. This recipe turned out perfect, moist, and simply delectable!

Ingredients (yields 8 muffins)

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Direction:

• Preheat oven to 375°/180. Line muffin cups with paper muffin liners.
• Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together bananas, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, and 1/2 cup coconut in a large bowl until combined well, then fold in flour mixture until flour is just moistened.Divide batter among lined muffin cups and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup coconut.
• Bake until muffins are puffed and golden, about 25 minutes.
• Transfer muffins to a rack and cool slightly.

Cinnamon & Apple Oat muffin

Dead delicious and considered a much more healthier option than anything you've seen on this blog so far are these delectable and yummy muffins.
This is a more bread like American Style muffin as opposed to a far more sweeter, fattening cake style muffin (such as those at Starbucks) and uses the basic muffin method. I also used fructose instead of sugar too. I can't for the life of me remember where this recipe is from but i do remember searching for the perfect combination of ingredients.

Wet ingredients are then added to the dry ingredients.

All the ingredients are combined until just so - not over mixing

et voila!

Cinnamon & Apple oat muffin
makes 12

ingredients:
300g plain flour
1tbs baking powder
2tsp cinnamon powder
150g brown sugar/fructose
2 med sized granny smith apples - or whatever your preference
125g oats
125g margarine/butter melted & cooled
2 eggs-lightly beaten
185ml milk
large teaspoon honey/maple syrup.

method

• Set oven to 180 degrees C
• Grease muffin tray
• melt margarine/butter & let it cool
  
• Chop/diced apples into small chunks
  
• sift flour, baking powder & cinnamon into a large bowl
• Stir in sugar & chopped apples
• Whisk together cooled melted butter, eggs, milk and the honey until well combined
• Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix this stage.
• Spoon mixture into muffin tray & bake for 20-25minutes.
  

I discovered more about baking muffins and amazing flavoured muffins at Joy of Baking, which i'd love to share with you all. This is what Stephanie Jaworski has to say about baking muffins.

BATTERS

The bread-like muffin batter is made using the "muffin method". This batter can be assembled and baked 'quickly', usually in 20-25 minutes. Only two bowls are needed to make the batter. One bowl is used to mix all the dry ingredients together. The second bowl contains all the wet ingredients. The fat used with the bread-like muffins is usually in liquid form, either an oil or melted butter. When the wet and dry ingredients have been mixed together separately, then they are combined. The important step here is not to overmix the batter. However, there is a tendency to over mix because the ratio of liquid to flour is quite high. But mixing too much overdevelops the gluten in the flour which will cause a tough muffin with tunnels and a compact texture. Only 10 to 15 strokes are needed to moisten the ingredients and the batter should be still lumpy and you may still see a few traces of flour. Don't worry about these lumps as the batter continues to blend as it bakes and any lumps will disappear. Note: Over mixing the muffin batter causes it to become very stringy. This is the gluten developing in the flour. Over mixing causes long strands of gluten to form making it hard for the leavener to work and causes long tunnels in the baked good.

The cake-like muffin batter is prepared using the same method as making a cake batter. The butter (room-temperature) and sugar are creamed together. The eggs are mixed in and then the wet and dry ingredients are added alternately. The higher sugar and fat content in this type of muffin act as tenderizers thereby producing a richer cake-like muffin with a softer crumb. The increased fat content also minimizes the development of gluten which again helps to produce a muffin with a softer crumb.

Read more: http://www.joyofbaking.com/muffins/

Coconut pineapple muffins

Coconut Pineapple Muffins

This recipe was super easy and super delicious, i had changed some of the quantities to suit my taste. The result? Bouncy, moist and really yummy muffins.

2 cups flour, sifted with 1 tablespoon baking powder
½ cup desiccated coconut - added a little more 3/4 cup
½ cup caster sugar - i used 3/4 cup
1 egg
¼ cup melted butter - I used 1/2 cup
1/3 cup milk (or use the drained juice from the crushed pineapple) - i used 2/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1x225 gram can crushed pineapple,drained
½ cup slivered almonds

In a large bowl add the flour, coconut and sugar. Stir to mix.

In a small bowl, place the egg, butter milk (or pineapple juice) and vanilla - whisk lightly to incorporate, then stir in the drained crushed pineapple.

Stir this into the dry ingredients until only just combined.

Spoon the batter into prepared muffin pans and sprinkle over with slivered almonds.

Cook in a preheated 180°C oven for 20 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.

Recipe from Cook almost anything