Pineapple Toasted Coconut Muffins, a Little Helper, and a Great Short-cut!

This morning, my grandson Pete came up to my Granny flat and said (he's four) "Hey Grandma, let's get baking!" I knew what was coming next, a suggestion for chocolate chip cookies. I intervened with my own suggestion for muffins, and he loved the idea. He wanted blueberry muffins, but I had no blueberries. I did have coconut and pineapple, and I also had a GREAT short-cut - a box of Krusteaz Cinnamon Swirl Crumb Cake and Muffin mix. I took the cinnamon topping packet away and will use that another time, for cinnamon rolls or some other treat. I urge you to buy a couple of boxes of this mix - it is so versatile and works great in a pinch! It's about $2.50 or $3.00 in the grocery store and worth its weight in gold!

Here's the recipe:

Pineapple Toasted Coconut Muffins
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit

Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners

Ingredients:
cake pouch from a box of Krusteaz Cinnamon Swirl Crumb Cake and Muffin Mix (save cinnamon mixture for another time)
1 egg
2/3 cup water (or pineapple juice!)
1 cup coconut, toasted (I used sweetened)
1/2 cup crushed pineapple, not drained
Sugar for topping, granulated or sparkling

Directions:
In mixing bowl, with wooden spoon, stir together mix, egg, water, and pineapple. Stir in toasted coconut (directions follow).

To toast coconut: place coconut in dry skillet on stove top. Heat to medium/high heat and stir the coconut until toasty brown. Watch this constantly as it can burn in an instant. As soon as it's nice and brown, remove from the heat and stir into muffin mixture.

Using an ice cream scoop or 1/4 cup measure, divide batter evenly among muffin cups.  Sprinkle tops with sugar.

Bake for 20 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly pressed with your finger.

Cool about 10 minutes on a wire rack, remove from rack to finish cooling completely.

ENJOY!

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