Bland Land

Welcome to Bland Land, Population: this muffin recipe!

I don’t know about you, but after this holiday season, I needed a break from all the chocolate, pie, ice cream and various other sweets that made their way into my house. Which is why I scoured the internet for new healthy recipes to get me excited about eating healthy again.

I started following the Skinny Taste blog recently and it seemed like the ideal place to find a new recipe to try. That’s when I happened upon a Low Fat Papaya and Coconut Muffin recipe. It sounded delicious and exotic! I’d never had papaya, and never had coconut in a muffin. So needless to say, I was excited to try the recipe! Since I wasn’t sure how to tell a ripe papaya apart from an unripe one, I took the authors advice and went with mango instead. And to make my life easier (have you ever tried to cut a mango?) I use store bought frozen mango chunks to make the puree.

Unfortunately, they left me disappointed. I mean they aren't bad, they have a really great texture, and they're sweet - they just don't have a distinctive taste. So, although I’m going to post the recipe, I suggest you don't make it as written. Either I did something wrong, or the recipe is just a little on the bland side. But I said I would post my foibles, so here it is.

Mango Coconut Muffins

Adapted from SkinnyTaste blog. Makes 14 muffins

1 cup mango purée (I used frozen mango cubes)

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon (heaping)

1/2 cup coconut flakes (chopped finer – if you don’t like the long strings of coconut)

1 large egg, beaten

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp melted margarine

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325°. Defrost mango chunks (approximately 2 cups) and puree in a blender or magic bullet blender.
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda and cinnamon in a large bowl. Mix well. Add coconut and mix to combine.
3. In a medium bowl, mix eggs, melted butter, vanilla and puréed papaya. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just blended. 
4. Pour batter into a prepared muffin tins and bake at 325° for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool for about 10 minutes.

I used frozen mango to ensure the mango was ripe (since I assumed it would be frozen at peak ripeness – like all other frozen fruit). I also didn’t have the whole wheat pastry flour called for in the recipe, so I used a blend of whole wheat flour and all purpose (as suggested by the author). I didn’t use the salt that was listed in the recipe, but I never do. Finally, the recipe said margarine or butter could be used, so I went with margarine to continue with this whole “healthy recipe idea.” I think any one of those changes could have resulted in the blandness of the muffins – or the recipe just doesn't have had enough flavour for my palette. That being said, I brought the muffins into work, and everyone there said they really liked them. So maybe I'm just too picky?

I am determined to make this recipe work though! So I’m going to retry it, but follow the original recipe to a T, and make some changes to hopefully enhance the flavour. I’m thinking of sticking with papaya (and maybe using a bit more than 1 cup), switching the white sugar to brown sugar, adding more cinnamon and a little nutmeg, and maybe I’ll even put the salt in the recipe. I feel like these muffins have great potential, so I want to get them right!

I’m not going to let this recipe beat me! If I do remake them, I'll let you know the results. And if you have any suggestions for way to improve it, or maybe a clue as to what I did wrong, let me know!