Today I made these delicious strawberry cornmeal muffins. It’s not a recipe from my childhood but instead a happy accident. And the result is a new breakfast sensation in my household.
Strawberry Picking
This past week I decided to find a local U-Pick farm where we could re-live a bit of childhood. Fortunately, we found a great farm, but unfortunately we picked like we’d never seen strawberries before. I’m not the only one though — Erin from ErinCooks.com also had a berry picking adventure. Her berries look beautiful!
The trip turned out to be Joe’s first time picking berries of any type. He reminded me that we once had a small pot on our patio in which we had a sad little plant that yielded two strawberries. However, I don’t really think this counts as a true berry picking experience.
Joe took to the berry picking much better than I anticipated, although I later discovered a few pink berries in the basket. Next time, I will be on quality control. We worked our way through the field, finding a good section far from the other berry pickers. Time passed quickly and before we knew it, our basket had filled with some 14 pounds of berries. Eeek!
Once we got home, I immediately went to work on the berries. Over the weekend I made freezer jam, an amazing cobbler (coming soon), froze a few pounds, and gave a bowl full to the in-laws. Still, I have several pounds left.
Pairing Cornmeal with Strawberries
In the back of my pantry, there is a big bag of cornmeal. On occasion, I break it out and make sweet cornbread, a thick polenta or even cake. I decided to combine my cornmeal and a bit of slowly souring milk with the juicy red strawberries for a breakfast muffin.
The result? Glorious muffins. Seriously. I love them more than I can describe.
Strawberry Cornmeal Muffins
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped strawberries, plus 1/2 cup for garnish
In a large mixing bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add beaten egg, oil and milk, stirring until just combined. Fold in 1 cup chopped strawberries. I used smaller berries and simply cut them in half. I suggest chopping the berries no larger than 1/2″.
Fill muffin cups 3/4 full, then garnish with a few chopped berries. Bake at 400F (200C) for 20-25 minutes or until testing done.
Allow the muffins to cool before removing from the muffin tin. I ran a sharp knife around the edge of each muffin, then popped them out of the tin.
The muffins are light and sweet, the juicy berries like little strawberry explosions in your mouth. The cornmeal adds a bit of texture and light corn taste, but overall the muffins tasted like strawberry shortcake to me. Add a dollop of butter and you’re all set for breakfast (or dessert).
As an added bonus, the muffins are striking. The yellow muffin contrasted by the vibrant red strawberries is captivating.
Granted, their beauty wasn’t so grand that I couldn’t resist eating them. I had hoped to have them for breakfast for the next few days … but it looks like that won’t be the case. I think there is 1 left.
Update: I forgot to mention that my mother called last night with a strawberry update. She started picking berries 6 days ago on the farm and has already picked 15 quarts. Her patch is producing nicely and needs to be picked every other day. Mom also emailed me a photo from her first picking:
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Sorry if I’m late, but I lurrrve the makeover! I’m in Barcelona at the moment, so I’m looking forward to trying these with in-season WILD strawberries. Delicious! :)
Fabulous idea for getting at those berries. The season is just starting here. We’re also Eating Down the Fridge, but it’s going to be tough waiting to get out picking!!
Looks delicious! I am exceptionally jealous of your berry haul :) The church girls are going tomorrow ($1 a pound?? Yes please!), but I’m not sure the baby would appreciate hours in a strawberry patch ;o)
I wonder- I have a huge bag of popcorn. Can I grind it down to make cornmeal? Hmmm… :o)
Alan, these look great. Seriously delicious. I’m wondering if I can make them and bring them on a plan for my weekend trip.
I’ve never been berry picking before and it certainly looks like you can pick too much! Great idea to make the cornmeal muffins…I love it when you make muffins with berries and they pop in your mouth!
this recipe looks superb! i know what you mean about the strawberry picking – we picked 40 pounds last weekend. i froze a lot, so i will definitely try these muffins later in the year…i love seeing the strawberry photos on everyone’s blogs. they are such a photogenic fruit. your mom’s look great!
YUM! these look amazing!!!!!!!!!!! Your pictures are so great!! Makes me want a plate full!
These are just gorgeous muffins! Also, look at the fancy boxes they gave you to pick with?! All we got was a funky cardboard box. Thank you for linking to my silly berry adventure!
PS: What is the font you’re using to write on your images lately? I love it.
What a delicious strawberries photos and muffins!
I’m out of season here only if they’re imported and in general turn out expensive.
Really an excellent way to start a sweet week :)
Cheers!
Gera
These look amazing! I had 1/2 a carton of berries in the fridge that were in danger of going bad, so you just helped me put them to good use. My batch of Strawberry Cornmeal Muffins is in the oven now!
Lovely! How do you get your beautiful “hump”? My muffins always collapse on me! ;) What fun strawberry picking!
these look great. I love cornmeal and pairing it with sweet fruit has to be a happy combination!
These look delicious! I love cornbread so I’m sure I will love these! I just picked up some strawberries from the farmers market, now I know what to do with them!
Now your mum is just being cruel!
I love how the berries bleed into the pan from the heat– I just know how jammily good they are :)
Oh my gosh do those look & sound great, like a corn toastie in muffin form. We did strawberries this weekend too (though we got them at the farmer’s market instead of picking them) & made 2 batches of jam & one of strawberry sauce.
You can come here and pick ours… What started out as six little plants have taken over more than a quarter of our garden patch. There’s nothing that quite beats fresh strawberries! My late grandmother used to make cornmeal muffins every Sunday… adding strawberries is a really nice take on them.
If you still have some strawberries left, you might want to try this panzanella recipe from 101 Cookbooks. I made it a couple of weeks ago, and it’s fantastic. My family went crazy over it.
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/strawberry-panzanella-recipe.html
The same thing always happens to me when I go berry picking. It’s so much fun that you don’t realize how much you’ve picked. These muffins look great, and I have some blue cornmeal to use up, so how about blue and red muffins?
I love the way these look. Picking fresh berries is such a treat – for some reason fruit tastes better when you pick it yourself!
I love corn muffins.
I love berries.
I love muffins for breakfast if they are not those big stinking greaseballs you get from Costco.
I get bored of the same menu: blueberry – yawn, apple – yawn, banana – yawn, lemon poppyseed – yawn, chocolate – yawn (and let’s face it, that’s just a unfrosted cupcake).
Now, you have saved me. SAVED ME! Corn AND strawberries! Huzzah! I’m going to make these fo sho.
These look like a taste of Summer! Thanks for sharing these are definitely going on my to-make list!
These look great! I’m going to try to make them today.
Wow! I made those strawberry cornmeal muffins and they were delicious! Definitely a recipe I will be using again!