Coconut Cream Banana Mango Muffins

April 4, 2009.   1 Comments.   Categories Desserts, Tropical.  

Coconut Cream Banana Mango Muffins

Recipe and photos reprinted with permission:

Sue Doeden’s All About Food Blog

http://www.areavoices.com/sdoeden/

One of the best things about blogging is meeting other talented bloggers through social networking sites.  There are some terrific blogs out there and the more we can acknowledge great recipes and creativity by re-posting, the more we will support visiting traffic to blogs.  Sue Doeden’s blog “All About Food” is a fun and personable website.  This recipe looked so good, I had to repost it.  Please visit her site for more mouth-watering recipes!

In her own words:

My favorite banana muffins in the whole world have always been the ones my dad called his own. I don’t remember a time that he ever made them, but still, he called the moist muffins his banana muffins.

With pride in his voice, he would tell us the same story each time we ate the muffins. He was just a young boy when he invented the recipe in his mom’s kitchen. He mixed them up and baked them himself. Apparently, though, when he got married, he passed the banana muffin-making over to his wife. And so, for years, my mom made my dad’s banana muffins. My brother and I, along with my dad, would eat the muffins up in no time. They were delicious.

I’m not so sure my dad would approve of me playing around with his recipe. I’m in the midst of mango madness. I couldn’t stop myself from stirring some chunks of fresh mango into my dad’s banana muffins. Since I had half a can of cream of coconut in my refrigerator, leftover from the coconut cream custard I made for the mango soup (see previous post), I decided to stir some of that into the batter, too.

The new version of my dad’s banana muffins took on a tropical flair. They are still moist and full of great flavor. I’ve discovered the blacker the bananas look, the more pronounced the banana flavor will be in the baked muffins. When the last of a bunch of bananas starts to look too dark to eat, I put them in a zip-top freezer bag and pop them into the freezer. When I’m ready to start making muffins, I take them out of the freezer and let them thaw a little bit. I cut off the top end of each banana and squeeze the mushy banana right into the mixing bowl. Easy.

Next time I make the muffins with cream of coconut, I will stir in some chopped macadamia nuts and maybe some shredded coconut.

If you don’t have cream of coconut on hand, you can leave it out and increase the sugar from 1/2 cup to 1 cup.

Be sure the mango you use is ripe, juicy and sweet.

And remember — they’re my dad’s banana muffins (with a tropical twist). I’m pretty sure he’d like them.

My Dad’s Banana Muffins (with a tropical twist) or

Coconut Cream Banana Mango Muffins

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), room temperature
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup cream of coconut (such as Coco Casa)
• 2 eggs
• 2 large ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon fresh lime juice
• 1 cup vanilla yogurt or sour cream
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 ripe mango, chopped (1 cup)
• Turbinado sugar or sparkling sugar for sprinkling on muffin tops

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Coat muffin tins with non-stick cooking spray.

In small bowl, combine yogurt or sour cream and baking soda. Mix well and set aside.

In mixing bowl, cream butter until smooth. Add sugar and beat until incorporated. Add cream of coconut and blend. Add eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla, lime juice, and yogurt and baking soda. Mix well. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.  Stir just until all the dry ingredients have disappeared into the batter. Stir in mangoes.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins to 3/4 full. Sprinkle the top of each muffin with some turbinado sugar or sparkling sugar. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from muffin tins and cool on wire rack.

These muffins freeze well.