Apricot and Coconut Muffins

Zoe and I baked these yummy muffins the other day. Well really I baked, and Zoe played with an unopened packet of sugar, and did some pretend stirring with a bowl and a fork. She seemed to really enjoy it, and loved listening to me count out the number of cups of flour, sugar, etc. There was lots of singing too - "this is the way we stir the muffins, stir the muffins, stir the muffins" - on repeat. All in all it was a very fun time and I'll definitely be baking nice easy recipes with Zoe more often. So if you have a young one and a rainy day give these muffins a try - they are easy, fun and delicious!


Apricot and Coconut Muffins (from The Australian Women's Weekly Kids Cooking)
Makes 12

425g can apricot halves
2 1/4 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
160ml buttermilk
125ml vegetable oil
1/3 cup apricot jam

Coconut topping
1/4 cup plain flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
1/3 cup shredded coconut
30g butter

1. Preheat the oven to moderate. Grease 12-hole muffin pan. Drain apricots; discard syrup, then chop apricots coarsely.
2. Make coconut topping.
3. Combine flour and sugar in large bowl; use a fork to stir in apricot, then combined egg, buttermilk, oil and jam. Mixture should look lumpy, do not overmix.
4. Divide mixture among prepared pan holes; sprinkle coconut topping over each muffin mixture. Bake, uncovered, in moderate oven about 25 minutes. Stand muffins in pan 5 minutes; place top-side up on wire rack to cool.
5. Coconut topping: Combine flour, sugar and coconut in small bowl; use fingers to rub butter into flour mixture.
   

Here is the little miss trialing the coconut topping. She called it cheese, I guess it kind of looked like grated cheese. She loved it!