Do you know the muffin man?

Fact: I like to bake when it gets cold.
Fact: I have shredded coconut in my freezer.
Fact: I have bananas that are getting mushy.
Fact: I do watch The Office.

My kids like muffins. I think I've established this in a previous post. I like to put fruit in them for the health factor, but plain banana-nut and apple muffins are getting old. I was playing around with a basic recipe and came up with a tropical muffin. I'm thinking of calling them Banana Colada muffins, but I'm pretty sure that one of the kids will tell Pastor Scott that Mommy gives them Banana Coladas.

So here's the recipe:

1 c. whole wheat flour
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. sugar
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1/3 c. shredded coconut
canned pineapple (chunks or crushed)
1 small ripe banana
milk (I used soy milk and it worked great)
1/4 c. vegetable oil
1 beaten egg
1 t. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. If you feel like making way more work for yourself, feel free to skip this step and just grease the muffin cups. I don't know anyone who enjoys scrubbing muffin cups, but hey, whatever floats your boat!

Mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and coconut in a bowl.

I used pineapple chunks, so I put about 8 chunks and the banana in my mini food processor and pureed it until all the lumps were gone. If you use crushed pineapple, you could just mash the banana with a fork and skip the processor. Put the banana and pineapple in a measuring cup, and add enough milk to make the total liquid amount 1 cup. You could definitely play around with the amounts of banana and pineapple. Add more pineapple than banana if you want, but don't exceed 1 cup total.

Stir the pineapple mixture, oil, egg, and vanilla into the dry ingredients. It's going to be a little thick. Spoon it into the muffin cups, and bake for 20 minutes.


If you really wanted to get fancy, you could add a teaspoon of rum extract instead of the vanilla. Oh, and don't omit the oil, the banana doesn't add enough fat to keep them from getting too dry.