Coconut Muffins

I seem to be enjoying muffins quite a bit lately, and have come up with a recipe of my own that I wanted to try.  That is coconut muffins, topped with icing and some more coconut.  Most muffins don’t really have toppings, except maybe some crumbs to add some crunch, but I think these little beauties deserve to be topped off with shredded coconut.

I also researched a little bit, about how to add butter instead of oil to a muffin mix, since I have been asked to substitute, or not to use so much oil.  It isn’t as simple as substituting an amount of oil with the same amount of melted butter, as the oil has a higher fat content, which is what makes the muffins so moist.  So when substituting it with butter I also had a adjust how much other liquid I would usually put in.  For instance I read that 125ml of oil would have to become 170 ml of butter.  So I tried to use that ratio in my mix.  

In the recipe below I suggest cooking for 20 minutes, that worked very well for me, but ovens are notorious in their vagaries, so if you wish to try these you may have to adjust the cooking time.  As long as a skewer, when used to test the muffins, comes out clean all will be fine.

For the coconut I used desiccated in the muffin mix, as it is more finely chopped that the normal shredded coconut.  I used sweetened, shredded coconut for the topping as it really does give a lovely addtional taste and texture.

Anyway, on to my recipe, and a couple of photos.  To see more than just the first photo Google+ viewers need to click the link to the blog.

Ingredients:

• 350g Plain Flour
• 75g desiccated coconut
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 112g melted butter, cooled
• 240ml milk
• 2tsp vanilla extract

For the topping:

• 200g Icing sugar, sieved(or sifted if you prefer that word)
• 2 ½ tablespoons water
• 50g Sweetened shredded coconut( you can use desiccated as shredded is difficult to find).

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/350F/Gas Mark 4 
2. In one bowl whisk the eggs with the caster sugar 
3. Whisk in the melted butter and milk 
4. Mix in the vanilla extract and desiccated coconut 
5. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together 
6. Add those dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients, and mix to incorporate. Do not over mix. 
7. Line your muffin tin with 12 muffin cases, or muffin tulips and drop the mixture, in equal proportions into the cases 
8. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. 
9. Allow to cool 
10. In a bowl mix the icing sugar with the 2 ½ tablespoons of water to make a thick icing paste, that is still just able to drip from a spoon. Add the water slowly, so the icing doesn’t get too thick. 
11. If your muffins are in cases you can dunk them into the icing to cover the tops, if your muffins are in tulip cases drip the icing over each muffin until the top is coated. 
12. Sprinkle the sweetened shredded coconut over the top of the icing, pressing down gently.