Coconut Craisin Muffins

I just got back from 8 days in Australia, Brisbane and Sydney to be exact.  The trip was wonderful and I really enjoyed Australia; the country is beautiful, the people friendly and I can hardly wait to go back!  However, three days later and I'm still suffering from some pretty awful jet lag.  That part has not been so fun.  So at 4 o'clock this morning, I decided that I wanted some muffins for breakfast.  Nice, piping hot muffins that when you cut them open and put some butter on them, the butter instantly melts and drips off the edge.  My mouth waters even now.  So I looked on the Splenda website, not really sure why I decided on that site, but I think it had something to do with the Splenda Blend that is sitting on my counter.  I hadn't used it in a while, so I figured, why not?  Well, on the Splenda website, there was a recipe for Orange Cranberry Muffins.  I didn't have an orange, but I figured I could use orange extract, however, it turned out that I didn't actually have any orange extract.  So as I stood there in my kitchen, dreaming about hot buttered muffins, my mind kicked into overdrive and I HAD to figure out how to flavor these muffins.  So I figured what the heck and grabbed the coconut extract.  I figured the worse that would happen is that they might be awful and my dream of biscuits would go down the drain.  When they were baking though, the smells emanating from the oven would have made even the strongest man wilt.  When the oven timer went off, I pulled the muffins out of the oven, and immediately cut on open and slathered it in butter.  Let me tell you, I hit a HOMERUN!  YUMMMMMYYY  Perfect start to breakfast at 4:45am this morning on a day that turned out to be cold and definitely fall like.    So here's my recipe, there are a few small changes from the recipe above, and let me tell you, small they may be, but you end up with one big flavored muffin!

INGREDIENTS

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup SPLENDA^® Blend

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1 large egg

1/3 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, pour yourself 1/3 cup milk and had 1 tsp vinegar)

1/2 cup Craisins

 

DIRECTIONS

1. PREHEAT oven to 375 degrees F. Line 6 muffin cups with paper liners or spray with nonstick spray.
2. MIX together flour, baking powder and baking soda. Set aside.
3. BEAT butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add SPLENDA^® Blend and coconut extract beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat.
4. STIR in buttermilk. Gradually stir in flour mixture until just combined.
5. FOLD in craisins. Spoon batter evenly into muffin cups.
6. BAKE 15-20 minutes or until lightly browned
7. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with Splenda Blend.
8.  Remove from pan, cool for a moment, slather with butter and ENJOY!