Lime and Coconut Muffin

Well hello winter!  It was so cold today in DC.  I wore a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, and a scarf.  Pretty soon I'll start wearing tights under my pants.

In other news, I used ten pounds free weights in my gym class today.  It was a first for me.  When I started taking this gym class, I used 5 pound weights.  I moved up to 8 pounds about a month ago.  

My arms don't appear to be more muscular, but I do feel stronger.  I hope that I have more defined arms, but the change has been indistinguishable to me because it has been gradual.  I'm an optimist.  It's probable that my arms look as weak as before.

The inspiration for these muffins came from my recent trip to Florida.  I may have mentioned a few hundred times already, but it was the highlight of my Fall.  

When my friends and I went to Florida, we went to a store that only sold key lime flavored foods.   They sold cookies, fudge, hard candies, muffin mixes, key lime pie, and many other things.  I tried every free sample they hand in the store.  I also bought some key lime pie.

These muffins have lime and not key lime, but I don't live in Florida.  My grocery store doesn't sell key limes.  I started with a lemon poppy seed muffin recipe.  I swapped the lemon zest and juice with lime zest and juice.  I omitted poppy seeds and added coconut.  

The ingredients are 1/2 cup softened butter, 2/3 cup white sugar, 2 large eggs, 1 1/3 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, zest of 2 limes, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 3 tablespoon lime juice, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 cup coconut.

I combined the butter and sugar.  The butter was a little too warm to be considered softened.  It was more like liquid butter.  Don't be like me.  I stirred the butter and sugar together.

I added the eggs and vanilla.  I just realized I made a pretty significant change to the original recipe.  The original recipe just added the yolks here.  They beat the egg whites until soft peaks formed and folded the whites in at the very end.  Oh well!  My muffins worked.

In another bowl, I added the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lime zest.  I stirred these ingredients together.

I added the coconut flakes to the flour mixture and stirred.

In yet another container, I combined the yogurt, lime juice, and vanilla.

I added half of the flour mixture into the melted butter and sugar.  I stirred it until combined.

I added half of the yogurt mixture and stirred.

I added the remaining flour mixture and stirred.

Not surprisingly, I added the last of the yogurt mixture.

I scooped the batter into a muffin pan lined with paper liners.

I baked the muffins for 22 minutes at 250 degrees.  The recipe says to bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes.

These had a nice soft texture.  They were moist.  I enjoyed the little chewy bits of coconut.

The flavor of coconut and lime was present, but a little too subtle for me.

I would add more lime zest and replace the yogurt with coconut milk.

 Even though the flavors were a little too subtle, they were lovely muffins.

The flavor was reminiscent of Florida or the tropics, a cheap and easy way to escape the bitter cold of winter.