Reflections on ... lemon and coconut muffins

 

I’ve been on a baking binge lately (and sadly, I have the waistline to prove it). My manager at work is running in the London Marathon soon and held a bake sale at the office to fundraise. I volunteered to contribute – and made these fool-proof old favourites: lemon and coconut cupcakes. (They make such a huge quantity of cupcakes I could “donate” some to the bake sale and keep most of them at home!). As a public service, here’s the recipe. 

250 grams softened unsalted butter (as in: the whole package!)

1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (I ignore that and just use the zest of the whole lemon without measuring)

1 cup caster sugar

3 eggs

2 ¾ cup of desiccated coconut (I ignore that and chuck in the whole package)

2 cups self-raising (NOT plain) flour

1 can coconut milk 

Preheat oven to 180-degrees 

Cream butter, lemon zest and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer until fluffy. 

Add and beat the three eggs one by one. Gradually alternate between mixing in the can of coconut milk and the flour until all combined. Finally, add the bag of desiccated coconut and combine. Spoon batter into lined muffin tin. It makes 24 muffins – a huge amount! Bake for approximately 45 – 50 minutes until the tops are pale gold, firm in the middle and a stick of spaghetti comes out clean. (That’s a Nigella Lawson tip: using spaghetti as a cake tester).