mondo tropicaux au go go muffin

soundtrack: serge gainsbourg's couleur café

mondo tropicaux au go go (avec noix de coco): a big, big muffin with bananas and coconut, topped with a pineapple ring, brûléed banana, and a light dusting of more coconut. i cribbed the name from laurie's imbb entry, but it's not the same muffin 't'all (although hers sounds really lovely, once translated). anyway, it sounds much better in french, mais oui? bananes, ananas, et coco oh my!

the recipe is basically adapted from jill dupleix's banana muffins recipe, but i added an extra banana to the two in her recipe, 50g of dessicated medium flake unsweetened coconut (the one that looks like dandruff, not the sweet stringy stuff), omitted the cinnamon, and baked it in one of those jumbonormous muffin tins. generally, i stay away from giant muffins, but i really, really, really wanted to put a pineapple ring on top, so jambo-jumbo it was. for the topping, i added the pineapple ring halfway through the baking time, about ten minutes in, although in the future, i might add it earlier so it sinks in a little more. the reason i didn't add it at the beginning of baking is because i thought the ring might sink to the middle, which wouldn't get me anywhere. after baking and cooling, i stuck a slice of banana in the middle of the pineapple ring, sprinkled some sugar on top and blowtorched it until browned nicely, then sprinkled more coconut on that.

the texture is much lighter than most of these stodgy big things are, with a finer crumb than i see in most muffins. the flavour of the cake is wholly dependent on how good your bananas are--look for the sweetest, gloopiest bananas you can find. the pineapple adds a nice, fresh counterpoint, and the brûléed banana is just a bit of fun for you, and you alone to enjoy. unless gwen stefani asks for it, and then i suggest you give it to her because why? holla! B - A - N - A - N - A - S !!!