Tropical Muffins

Pineapple. Coconut. Orange. It’s like pinacolada in muffin form!! When my husband came home with a pineapple earlier this week, I knew I wanted to make muffins with it. The thought of bitting into a baked good and finding a nice piece of sweet pineapple is what got my creative juices flowing.

My good friend just had her second baby, and as good friends do, I brought her some food. Among all the goodies I brought her, were a version of these muffins. The first version actually. Although I wasn’t a fan of the way the first batch came out, I still delivered them to her because I didn’t have time to bake another batch that day and I really wanted to provide her with something more than just dinner. So she got my test run muffins (Sorry Paige!!). The very next morning I woke up and decided to try again because I just wasn’t satisfied with how they came out. After changing the recipe a bit, I am much happier with this version 🙂 The only thing I would change is adding more fresh pineapple.

Ingredients:

Dry:

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 1/2 cups flour (I used buckwheat)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp tumeric (optional)
• 1 cup oats (I used small)
• 1 cup toasted coconut shreds
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar

Wet:

• 1 cup orange juice (I used fresh pressed)
• 1 TBS orange zest
• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
• 1/4 cup ground flax seeds in 1/2 cup water
• 2 TBS apple cider vinegar
• 1 TBS vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped fresh pineapple

• 1/4 cup coconut pieces to top muffins

Steps:

• preheat oven to 350*F
• in a smal bowl combine ground flax with water, stir and let sit
• in a skillet, on medium heat, toast the coconut shreds. Stirring constantly. Pay close attention to this as the coconut goes from not toasted to brunt really fast. This should tie just a couple minutes.
• in a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients, coconut included
• in a blender combine all the wet ingredients, flax seeds included
• barely blend, just enough to mix the ingredients and start breaking down the pineapple. If you have settings on your blender, I would put it on low. If you don’t you could do this in the food processor and pulse a few times.
• put in greased muffin tins, top with coconut pieces and bake about 10 minutes for mini muffins and 20 minutes for larger muffins.