To say that these muffins are popular with the kids is putting it mildly! What can I say, I seem to have outdone myself. Frankly, I’m a little surprised.

The boys usually like just about every muffin. Favorites tend to have chocolate chips (orange coconut chocolate chip mini muffins) or peanut butter (peanut butter chocolate chip muffins). More unfrosted cupcake like than muffin like. Yes, they like nearly every muffin. But for their new favorite to be gluten free, I’m shocked!

We don’t eat gluten free, but I’ve had a package of coconut flour for some time now and keep meaning to use it. I wanted to experiment outside my comfort zone. It is always nice to have a good gluten free recipe on hand. We’ve had several friends at past playdates that are either celiac or choose to eat gluten free. If you need this to be a gluten free recipe make sure you use a baking powder labeled as gluten free, not all brands are.

Given that I was using coconut flour I decided to play off that flavor and add in some unsweetened coconut. The unsweetened version is usually shredded finer than the sweetened type so it works even better in mini muffins. Lime is a great citrus to pair with coconut and of course it all goes well with blackberries.

I first experimented with this recipe in the beginning of our blackberry season. Blueberries would also taste great in this muffin, the boys and I happen to adore blackberries. We have a couple bushes in the garden, but they don’t really produce enough. The boys eat off the bushes leaving little to actually bring in the house. So a couple times each June I head out and go to my special secret place to forage some blackberries. This year my yield was low though.

I was heartbroken, not even enough to make blackberry jam. I froze some of what I got and waited until I picked more. I may be able to scare up enough for jam yet. I still don’t regret using some in this recipe. That’s when I discovered how much the boys love these little muffins.

Part of the reason for making these in mini muffins was portion control, well that theory was blown away. Jack eats at least five at a time!! Oh well, I’ll take his enthusiasm for these muffins any day. At least they look cute as a mini muffin, that is until the entire thing gets shoved into my boys’ mouths!

Coconut Lime Blackberry Cornbread Muffins
1 c. coconut flour
1 c. cornmeal
3/4 c. sugar
1/3 c. unsweetened shredded coconut
1 Tbs. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. coconut oil (liquid state)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Zest and juice of one lime
1 1/2 c. blackberries (see note)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the coconut flour, cornmeal, sugar, coconut, baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix together. In another bowl whisk together the buttermilk, coconut oil, eggs, vanilla and lime zest and juice. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry and stir to combine. Fill greased mini muffin pans with about 1 Tbs. per hole and top with a blackberry, bake 13-15 minutes.

NOTE: It may take more or less blackberries depending on size. When I used wild blackberries they were very small so I put three on top of each muffin.

Yields: 3 1/2 dozen