I love baking, but I don’t get to bake nearly as much as I want to. The majority of my time in the kitchen is spent trying to make healthy dinners or lunches. I don’t mind it, but often when I am sautéing onions or chopping veggies, I’m secretly wishing that I was making cinnamon rolls or a big pretty cake. Every once in awhile, I quench my thirst for baking with homemade buns or pitas, but most of the time what I really thirst for (or should I say hunger for) is baking cookies or cupcakes. The way to my husbands heart is through veggies and beans, not sweets and I end up eating all the baked goods by myself.
I have made it a rule in my house that I only get to make desserts if I have someone to give them to or an event to take them to. I jump on the opportunity to help with a baby shower or make something for a friends birthday. And every once in awhile my husband asks me to make something for his team at the hospital. He is a medical student and works under residents and attending physicians . He moves to a new specialty with a new team every month or two, and sometimes he likes to bring in a treat to say thank you before he moves on. The other day he asked me to make muffins to take to the residents who had been on call all night so they could have a nice breakfast. And lets face it, muffins are pretty much toned down cup cakes. True, there are recipes for healthy muffins out there. I don’t consider this one all that healthy. It has two cups of fruit, but it also has sugar and butter. I am ok with having muffins for breakfast every once in a while. Especially if they are as delicious as these!
These muffins are filled with pureed mangos and bananas, with a hint of coconut. They are topped with a sugar streusel and fragrant toasted coconut. If you don’t have coconut extract, feel free to just use vanilla extract, but it just wont have as much coconut flavor. I would say these muffins definitely scratched my baking itch!
Makes 15-17 muffins
Ingredients:
- 1/3 C. butter, softened
- 3/4 C. white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp. coconut extract
- 3/4 C. pureed mangos (fresh or frozen)
- 1 C. pureed bananas (2-3)
- 1/4 C. coconut milk (you can use light or full fat)
- 1 1/2 C. all purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
Streusel:
- 1/4 C. sugar
- 3 TBSP. flour
- 2 TBSP. cold butter, chopped into small pieces
- sweetened toasted coconut to sprinkle on each muffin
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 375 F. and prepare two muffin tins with paper muffin liners or by spraying the muffin tin with baking spray. You wont use all 24 spots. You will fill between 15 and 18 muffins. If you haven’t toasted your coconut yet, you can do it now by spreading an even layer of sweetened shredded coconut on a baking sheet and baking for 5-7 minutes, or until it starts to turn golden. Let it rest on the pan for a couple minutes after taking it out of the oven and it will become crispy.
2. In a blender, puree the mangos and bananas. I used about a cup of cubed mangoes (frozen and thawed from Trader Joe’s) and that made around 3/4 C. of pureed mangos. To that I added two bananas and after blending, the whole mixture was around 1 3/4 cups. I added coconut milk until the whole thing was at 2 cups. The important thing is that the fruit/coconut milk mixture is two cups. It doesn’t really matter if you have a little less banana and a little more mango. If you blend together the mango and banana and its two cups before adding the coconut milk, feel free to add it in anyway. These muffins are pretty forgiving.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg, coconut extract, and fruit puree and mix until combined.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix, just until the ingredients are combined. Once the ingredients are combined, stop mixing! If you over mix, the muffins will have a dense, unpleasant texture.
5. In the same bowl you mixed the dry ingredients, add all the streusel ingredients, except the coconut. Use a pastry cutter or a fork to mix together the ingredients, cutting the butter into the dry ingredients. The butter should be in little tiny pieces and the whole mixture should be crumbly.
6. Fill each muffin liner about 2/3 full and sprinkle on the streusel topping. Be generous and use up all the streusel!
7. Bake the muffins for 10 minutes, sprinkle on the toasted coconut and cook for another 9 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean. These muffins are best eaten warm or soon after they are made, although they are still delicious a day or two later.
Recipe by Edible Experiments
