Blueberry Coconut Muffins

At this beautiful peak of produce season, I tend to just eat fresh vegetables without much embellishment or cooking, keeping things simple, improvising and revisiting favorite recipes that I like to make each year. The result: no new recipes and, therefore, no new posts. Oh well.

But hey, there are still some berries out there, and even if there aren’t you can use frozen berries and make these sweet coconut muffins. I swirled some blueberries into these, because, well, blueberry muffins. They don’t need much explanation or excuse.

The batter for these muffins is based on this one for Coconut Cranberry Quick Bread, which I made (and loved!) something like a million years ago. I’ve wanted to try a blueberry version of this quick bread in muffin form for quite some time, and I’m really glad I finally got around to it. Perhaps not having a line-up of new recipes utilizing fresh summer produce or a metric tonne of zucchini to use up has its upside: Nothing new to try means finally getting around to trying something I should have tried long ago!

I had forgotten how much I loved this coconut quick bread/muffin batter. It’s quite sweet, giving argument basis to those who would argue that muffins are really cake. So be it! And being reminded of how good this delicious baked-good moistened with coconut milk and chock-full of shredded coconut is just gives me even more tasty ideas for what to do with it. How about adding pineapple or dates? Raspberries? Chocolate? Or turning the batter into a rum cake? Well, at the rate I’m getting around to trying new things, you might get to test these ideas out before I do. If so, let me know how it goes!

Blueberry Coconut Muffins

Adapted from Cooking Light January/February 2005

I used sweetened flaked coconut in this recipe. I think you could use unsweetened coconut. The result, of course, would be less sweet muffins, but, since these are a sweet muffin, that’s probably fine.

As you can see in the photos above, I neglected to sprinkle coarse sugar on top of the muffins, which I think is a nice touch, especially when the muffins are freshly baked. The recipe here includes the step of using the coarse sugar garnish.

2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

¼ cup butter, melted and cooled

1 cup coconut milk (I used light coconut milk)

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

1 cup coconut

2 tsp turbinado sugar, optional

1.  Preheat oven to 400 F. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray or line it with cupcake liners.

2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Stir with a whisk until well combined.

3.  In another medium bowl, lightly beat the egg with a whisk.  Whisk in the melted butter, then add the coconut milk and vanilla and whisk until well combined.

4.  Pour in the egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just moist.  Gently stir in the cranberries and coconut.

4.  Spoon batter into the prepared muffin pan.  Sprinkle evenly with turbinado sugar if desired.

5.  Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center, or a wooden pick inserted into a muffin comes out without any wet batter clinging to it.  Remove muffins from pans immediately; place on wire racks to cool.

Makes 1 dozen muffins

Other recipes like this one: Coconut Cranberry Quick Bread, Blueberry Thyme Cornbread, Blueberry Muffin Coffee Cake with Crumb Topping

One year ago: Hazelnut Cake with Chocolate Glaze