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Banana Coconut Muffins

03.02.2013 by J. Doe // 8 Comments

Yes, I know. This is my third banana muffin/banana bread recipe.

Indulge me.

The Child, it turns out, bought me a really nice muffin pan for Christmas, along with some cookie sheets. I already had some nice cookie sheets but I’m not complaining – having a lot can be handy. But my muffin pans were not good, and the pan selected by The Child – well, it is a very good pan, thick aluminum with big cups for big muffins. The only thing to do, then, was to make muffins.

I had some overripe bananas – I usually do, which is why I so often make banana bread. But not long after Christmas, I ran across a copy of The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion in a used bookstore. I’ve heard wonderful things about King Arthur recipes from numerous people recently, so I bought the book.  It contained yet another recipe for banana muffins – completely different from both Fannie Farmer’s Banana Bread and Biloxi Banana Bread.

The King Arthur book contains a base muffin recipe, and then a list of ingredient combinations that can be added in to make whatever muffins you like. It is a spectacular recipe – yes, spectacular – because the muffins rise beautifully, yet have a fine, moist crumb.

The bananas are not mashed and blended into the batter the way they usually are, but rather diced finely and mixed in with the coconut at the end. I wondered if this might result in less of a banana taste in the muffins, but it really didn’t. I loved the added flavor and texture of the coconut, but it could easily be omitted if one didn’t care for coconut.

Banana Coconut Muffins

Banana Coconut Muffins
 
Print
Prep time
15 mins
Cook time
20 mins
Total time
35 mins
 
Author: King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
Serves: 16
Ingredients
  • 3½ cups unbleached all-purpose or cake flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 2 bananas, diced finely
  • 1½ cups shredded unsweetened coconut
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F and lightly grease 16 muffin cups or use paper liners.
  2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
  3. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with a handheld or stand mixer until light and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl to make sure all the butter is incorporated, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  4. Add the vanilla and sour cream and mix until incorporated.
  5. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low-speed just until the batter is smooth. Add diced bananas and coconut and stir just to incorporate.
  6. Fill the muffin tins and bake for 18 to 24 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  7. Remove the muffins from the oven, cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then remove the muffins from the pan to finish cooling on a rack. Muffins left in the pan to cool the entire time will become tough from steaming.
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This is my contribution to Weekend Cooking, hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Why not swing by and see what other simple pleasures await?

Categories // All By Myself, The Joy of Cooking Tags // baking, bananas, coconut, recipes, single parenting

Christmas Shopping with The Child, Part 3

02.28.2013 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

Once she had recovered from the near-miss at the Splat Ball stand, The Child was more reluctant to venture too far from me. This suited me fine as the mall was by now getting fairly crowded and I was getting tired.

She inquires what I was doing right before I came to get her. I tell her, I was looking at pans in Macy’s.

Oh! she says. I just remembered I need to look at something in Macy’s, too.

We head to Macy’s, where I am instructed to wait among the handbags on the first floor, while she heads the escalator, to housewares.

My phone pings with a text.

If u were to have the most perfect set of pots ever, than what would it be? she asks.

Uh-oh. I do not want to send her over to All-Clad or Le Creuset and have The Child realize that Mommy has champagne taste and The Child has a beer budget.

Ohhh, I don’t really need pots, I reply. I need baking pans.

Also, I add, almost all my corningware has been broken.

Okay, thanks! She replies.

A few minutes later, the phone pings again.

So, she wants to know, you mean the kind of pans you would put in an oven?

Yes, I tell her.

Okay, she says. And then: Does it matter what kind of metal they are made out of?

Aluminum works very well, usually, I tell her.

Okay, thanks!!!!! comes the reply.

She comes down the escalator not too long after, with a large bag and a pleased expression. I’m done, she says.

Then she adds, I hope you won’t be able to guess what I got you.

No, I tell her. I won’t even try. I love surprises. Especially when they are happy ones.

Categories // All By Myself Tags // holidays, single parenting

Christmas Shopping with The Child, Part 2

02.26.2013 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

Having bought a gift for The Dog, The Child seemed to think she had completed her Christmas shopping, until we got home and she decided that maybe she hadn’t. So, the following weekend, we head out to the Mall, but a “different mall” this time.  Because the other mall has “other things.”

Are you looking for something in particular? I ask.

Yes, she says.

Can you give me a hint what kind of thing you are looking for? Maybe then I can help you find a good store.

I’m looking for a present, she says. I need to look at the other mall.

We head off to the other mall, cell phone charged. This mall is much larger than our usual one, and the crowd is – how shall I say it? – a bit more mixed, and since there’s a bit more crowd, I am reluctant to let The Child go too far from me. She wants to go looking on her own, and that’s okay, but I set boundaries how far she can roam from where I am.

I wander through a tea shop, find a nice pot for my father’s wife. The Child appears and ecstatically holds up a small stone she has found for my father. It’s some sort of zen thing, she says, and the man at the store gave her a good price on it. This all sounds great, and we head off to another part of the mall.

On the way, we pass the Splat Ball stand. We stop and check out the Splat Balls, which, The Child informs me, are awesome.

Splat Balls, in case you are wondering, are gelatinous balls that, when thrown  against a hard surface, flatten completely, and then spring back into their original shape.

They are terribly exciting, and also, they are three for $10. This strikes me as a rather high price for what amounts to hi-tech jell-o wigglers, and I suggest to The Child that we should “think about them.”

I’m thinking, I’ll come back in a bit and get a couple for her Christmas stocking.

She’s attempting to do math in her head, and wondering if she has enough money to get a Splat Ball for each of her friends.

She agrees to come back later. We find another mall section, I mark off the boundaries (“no further than Ann Taylor in that direction … or the flying mini-copter stand in that direction”).

I start to look around in Macy’s, first in accessories, then head upstairs to look at housewares. My phone pings with a panicked text.

Where r u? The Child wants to know. The lady selling splat balls tried to rip me off!!

She adds, I got out of it quickly, though.

Did you keep your money? I ask.

Yes, every last penny, she says.

Over lunch, she tells me what happened: Apparently, on leaving me, The Child headed straight back to the Splat Ball stand, and tried to figure out if she could buy nine balls – one for each of her friends. By the time she was done with the balls and sales tax, this added up to more money than she expected – but not more than the price that was quoted.

But the woman kept trying to sell me more, The Child says.

Every time The Child announced she had the right amount of balls, she says, the Splat Ball lady would try to add on one more, for me. She kept making me try to buy one more. And I didn’t feel right about it so I told her I wanted my money back and I didn’t want any splat balls.

I have to decide if I want to give her the speech about how sometimes stores will give you little gifts with purchase, since it is clear to me that was what the sales lady was trying to do – give The Child one more ball, so she’d have one for herself.

But since it was clear to me that the stand was selling ridiculously overpriced crap to a young child, I opt instead for a different lesson.

I’m glad you listened to your gut, I tell her. Your gut is almost always right.

Categories // All By Myself Tags // holidays, single parenting

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