Coconut lovers, this double-coconut banana muffin recipe is for you! I’m confident you’ll fall in love with the sweet, bright flavors and contrasting textures in these little treats.

These muffins taste familiar and comforting, given their fluffy, banana-infused insides. They’re also fun and tropical, thanks to the shredded coconut you’ll find on the inside and on the muffin tops. A little lemon zest brings all the flavors together.

Like my healthy banana muffins, these muffins are also made with whole wheat flour and naturally sweetened (this time, with honey).

These muffins are based on a different recipe, though, and yield smaller muffins that are perfect for satisfying your afternoon sweet tooth. You could also serve them for a grab-and-go breakfast this Memorial Day weekend.

Curious about how this recipe came to be? I can’t remember how I originally found Deb’s Double Coconut Muffins, but I was completely taken by her coconut-topped beauties.

In the original recipe, Deb gives a long list of suggested substitutions, including swapping mashed banana for the yogurt. I was out of my staple Greek yogurt so I reached into my freezer for the bag of ripe, frozen banana chunks to defrost.

This was a serendipitous substitution because the banana adds the sweetness that unsweetened coconut flakes lack. In my second batch, I traded 1/4 cup honey for the 1/3 cup sugar, and found that the dry coconut soaks up the extra moisture in the honey.

I’m three batches deep in this recipe and I can say with certainty that these muffins are best with banana, sweetened with honey and topped with a heavy sprinkle of coconut and some glittering raw sugar.

With my substitutions, if you try yogurt instead of mashed banana, your muffins won’t be sweet enough to delight.