Macaroon Muffins

Coconut flour is trickier to work with than I anticipated my friends…

Despite the time lapse between posts, I can assure you that I have not been totally out of the kitchen over the past weeks.  No, I haven’t been in there as much as usual – who can blame me with work piled up to my head and these cute little distractions running around? – but baking attempts have indeed been made!

I tried a couple times to make another all coconut flour treat – as I enthusiastically stated I would.  After such delicious success with my Mini Chocolate Cupcakes, I thought it would be easy peasy.  Hmmm…not so much.  First up was my own attempt at a banana-cocoa-coconut muffin, using banana as an egg replacer.  FAIL.  Too crumbly!  No rise!  Next I tried to play it safe and follow an already tested recipe.  FAIL numero dos.  Too eggy!  Not enough flavor!

Sigh…

Instead of continuing my seemingly futile experiments and denying you all a new recipe even longer, I decided to temporarily put my all-coconut-flour-treat dream on hold and bake up something sure to work – still using coconut flour of course!

So today we have Macaroon Muffins!  What else would you call a goodie made from coconut flour, coconut milk AND shredded coconut?  Yum.

Here’s the recipe:

1 egg

1/2 cup light coconut milk

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup maple syrup

1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 cup coconut flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350*F. Spray muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, mix together egg, coconut milk, applesauce, vanilla extract and maple syrup until well blended. In a separate bowl, mix whole wheat pastry flour, coconut flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and shredded coconut. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just blended. Spoon into prepared pans (top with extra shredded coconut if you want to have some fun!) and bake for 16-18 minutes. Makes 8 muffins.

These muffins are scrumptious!  Thank goodness, right?! They are packed with coconut flavor thanks to copious use of coconut-y ingredients and pretty light too from using “light” coconut milk and applesauce instead of oil.  And I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: maple syrup makes the BEST sweetener.  If you like coconut, I’m pretty sure you’d be a fan of these.

What’s your favorite coconut recipe?