recipe: Berry coconut muffins

I am going to start recording a few of my more successful improvised recipes on this site, lest they fade from my memory never to be replicated. At the moment my main culinary challenges are cooking tasty nutritious things that Jacob will eat, with as little sugar as possible, and also dairy-free, for Ed. And meat-free for me.

Jacob is probably quite similar in his food tastes to many other three year olds (suspicious of the unknown, abhors tomatoes but not tomato sauce, disapproves of things that are mixed together), except that he really loves anchovies, and spinach, and broccoli.

Admittedly, I wasn't taking much of a gamble with this recipe. I'll try to post some of my more audacious successes, too.

Berry coconut muffins

(Note: I have embraced US-style measuring as I have never owned kitchen scales, and likely never will)


Ingredients:
* 2 cups white whole wheat flour (or 1 cup of white and 1 of brown would work)
* 3 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup of shredded unsweetened coconut
* 1 egg or egg replacer
* up to 1 cup milk (I used soy&rice milk)
* 1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil, not extra virgin)
* 1 cup of mixed frozen berries (or fresh if you have them - hurrah!)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
2. Stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar and coconut in a large bowl. Make a well in the center. In a smaller bowl, beat the egg with a fork. If you are using frozen berries and you thaw them in the microwave, they will probably ooze some juice. Pour any berry juice you have into your measuring cup, and make it up to full cup with milk. Stir in the milk (& berry juice) and oil.
3. Pour the liquids all at once into the well in the flour mixture. Mix quickly and lightly with a fork until moistened, but do not beat. The batter will be lumpy. Then add the berries and stir again lightly. Pour the batter into muffin pan cups. Sprinkle some extra coconut on each muffin before baking (optional, but recommended - toasted coconut is so yummy)
4. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden.