For one, they are a whole new level of summer berry awesomeness. I mean, roasted berries, coconut, cornbread…salty whipped honey butter (with lavender if you’re into it)?!?!? I am sure you know this by now, but these muffins are everything I love and then some. PLUS, can we talk about all the color going on here? Just looking at these brightens my Tuesday. And you guys, my Tuesday needs just a little bit of brightening. Nothing horrible…but my dad, being the super nice guy that he is, had this table frame made to fit a REALLY heavy piece of soapstone I like to shoot on…a lot. I used to just have it on those rolling wood dollies that people use when moving big boxes, but my dad convinced me I needed to get it up off the floor and make a table out of it, so he found a guy to make a frame for the slab of soapstone. The frame got here the other day, but umm, the stone just didn’t quite fit perfectly into the frame. It was SO close. Like SO close. Ugh. Figures right??
Again, my dad being the awesome guy he is, decided he’d try to chisel away at the stone until it fit. BAD IDEA. The stone cracked into two pieces and I pretty much cried cause it is one of my favorite surfaces to shoot on… Really… my dramatic moments lately have been a bit over the top…I would say I need to get this under control, but I don’t know, playing the drama card can sometime work in my favor. It’s honestly not that bad though. We just put it back together and I can still use most of the stone, but now it has a giant crack in it where it snapped in half. Dad says it adds character and he’s probably right. Knowing me, I will end up loving the crack (and I do mean the crack in the table… obviously) and it will be a blessing in disguise. That kind of happens to me a lot, I complain at first and then I end up loving whatever I am complaining about… Although, the bugs currently infesting my house/barn/whatever you want to call it? Those I do not think I will ever like. So gross. I guess that is what you get for living in an old horse barn. Bugs.
The really good news (other than the fact that I am seriously considering getting a dog…) is that I made us these delicious muffins. Since they are muffins, that means they qualify as a healthy snack and therefore we can eat them all with a very generous pat of this whipped honey butter (cause honey + butter + salt + lavender = the best thing ever). I have not decided if I love or hate these photos. I either love them for all their color or hate them for all the busyness going on, but I surely love the muffin in the photos. They are sweet, buttery, moist, but still a little crumbly and when topped with that honey butter… pure summer perfection. And yes, I REALLY love the butter. Butter makes my world turn. It’s true. So, to start I roasted the berries until they just started to burst and release their sweet juices. I love doing this with berries, but especially when using berries in a muffin. Roasting them ensures they get perfectly sweet and each bite is delicious. Then I just used a simple cornbread type of muffin base, but infused it with a little shredded coconut and some coconut milk too. If you’ re not a fan of coconut, you can just leave the shredded coconut out and use buttermilk in place of the coconut milk. Personally, coconut IS my thing, so I maybe even added just a little more than the called for amount. I can’t help it. Coconut is one of my favorites…BUT with all the fresh goat’s milk we are getting now, that is quickly rising to the top as my new favorite milk. Oh yeah, I cannot believe I have not mentioned this yet, but about a week and a half ago we got our milking goat, Tiramisu! She is the best little milk goat ever, I love her. More about her another day though, I worry this post is getting a tad long.
And with that, I leave with this Mixed Berry Coconut Cornbread Muffins recipe. It’s such a good one and you should totally take a little Tuesday break and make them. One very important thing though, eat these warm with lots and lots of whipped honey butter. If you have to eat them straight from the muffin tin, I fully understand.
Now go and bake. No really. GO!
