Apple Buttermilk Muffins with Coconut Crumble

I was not able to make it to Muffin Monday due to two reasons: weekend errands and a dizzy head.  It turned out that my childhood sickness of 'low blood' is again visiting me.  Well, it is my fault anyway,  I know the dont's but still do it now I am paying the price. It's okay, I can manage *wink*

Even if I'm a bit lightheaded, I still want to bake this gorgeous muffins for it has has coconut and I simply love coconut!

I grew up in a compound full of fruit bearing trees including a number of coconut trees and one of my fondest memory is me sitting next to my grandma while workers are harvesting coconut fruit.  What do I do there? Eat my heart out! I think I can eat two or three coconut one after the other, no kidding!

Going back to the muffins, I did not change much from the original recipe (from Woman's weekly) except the addition of crushed grahams (a leftover from a dessert I made) to the coconut crumble which made a significant difference from what I expected.  



APPLE BUTTERMILK MUFFINS with COCONUT CRUMBLE

2 1/2 cups self raising flour
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I omitted this for I made my own apple pie filling, see recipe here)
410g can pie apples
1 egg
2/3 cup buttermilk (I made my own - 2/3 cup milk + 1 tablespoon lemon juice)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
 
For the coconut Crumble:
1/4 cup plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons caster sugar
1/2 cup flaked coconut
20 grams butter

1/4 cup crushed graham

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400F / 200C

For the coconut crumble:
Place all the ingredients in a small bowl and rub the butter using your fingertips till it is nice and crumbly. Set aside.

For the muffins:
Grease or line a 12 hole muffin pan
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and cinnamon. Stir in the apple. Do not over mix.
In a measuring jug or medium bowl, combine egg, buttermilk and oil.
Pour the buttermilk mixture into the apple mixture and mix gently.

Assemble:
Spoon the mixture equally into the prepared pan and top with coconut crumble.
Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

I am using a convection oven so you can imagine that is it small and can only contain one 6-muffin tray.  First batch out and it smells good!  Since I have extra batter, I decided to bake the rest using a loaf pan.  While baking, few minutes before it is supposed to be finished, my electric oven blasted! Yes, blasted not to mention small flames and much smoke in the kitchen.  I immediately pull the plug and remove the currently-baking cake.

I immediately inspected the cake (not the oven).  The center/top portion of the cake is not yet cooked.  Funny that I worry about the cake first before my oven or my house that could have been burned.  I am still grateful though.

My next concern was how I can salvage my cake.  Since I do not have an oven toaster, I decided to 'toast' the uncooked portion of the cake using a pan, just like when you make pancakes.  Here is how it looked liked after:

Does it look like meatloaf to you? LOL! It may look as such but it was definitely yummy!  I love this muffin or cake to that matter.  The coconut crumble with crushed graham was perfect!  It is tender and moist as well, just the way I like it *wink*

Good thing nothing was wasted and I was grateful!  Now I was left with perfectly yummy muffins and a cannot-be-used-until-fixed oven. 

I better have it fixed or I will have a cake-less, muffin-less and bake-less holidays!