Blackberry Cornbread Muffins

Blackberries are yummy. They are in season and we eat a lot of them. I saw this recipe for Blackberry Cornbread a couple of months ago in Southern Living Magazine. I figured I should make it since I live in the south. The only problem is, no one in my family really likes cornbread.

Except me.

I grew up eating cornbread every once in awhile and we always had it with honey. My mom made it in a cast iron skillet.

My hubby did trick me once when we were newlyweds. We were eating dinner at someone's house and they had made some kind of cornbread that looked like little corncobs (some sort of cornbread pan), and he ate it.

I decided that was enough of a reason to make it at home. When I did, he wouldn't eat it. I told him I saw him eating it at someone else's house and he told me he was being polite. Those darn Southerners and their manners.
I went back and forth about making this, but the curious side of me won out. I decided to make the recipe into muffins, luckily the people at the magazine had already thought of this and had also made directions for muffins. I decided to reduce the recipe and make 1/4 of it. I would only end up with 6 muffins, which really isn't that many.

I was going to substitute greek yogurt for the sour cream and when I was mixing these up, I realized that I grabbed vanilla bean flavored greek yogurt instead of plain. Since I like my cornbread on the sweet side and these had blackberries in them, I decided to go ahead and use the yogurt I had anyway.
I also used some egg white substitute instead of trying to divide an egg into 4 parts.

The results? I really liked them! I thought they were a nice twist on cornbread. There was just enough sweetness that they didn't need any honey and the blackberries added a yummy little tart hint of goodness.
My 2 year old liked them too. My 4 year old discovered she doesn't like the texture of cornmeal and my 7 year old and my hubby wouldn't even touch them.
Since I only made 6 muffins, none of that even mattered. My baby and I enjoyed them for breakfast the next day.


Blackberry Cornbread Muffins adapted from Southern Living Magazine, June 2009

Prep: 15 min., Bake: 15 min., Cool: 5 min.
We also tested this recipe using 1/2 cup melted butter in place of the canola oil and loved the rich, pound cake-like flavor it gave to these sweet cornbread muffins. They're delicious with peach preserves.


2 cups self-rising white cornmeal ( I used 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup sugar (I used 2 Tbls)
5 large eggs (I used 1 egg and 1 Tbls egg white substitute)
1 (16-oz.) container sour cream (I used 4 oz. vanilla bean flavored Greek yogurt)
1/2 cup canola oil (I used 2 Tbls canola oil)
2 cups fresh blackberries (I used 2/3 cup blackberries, plus a few on top for decoration)

1. Preheat oven to 450°. Stir together cornmeal and sugar in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Whisk together eggs, sour cream, and oil; add to cornmeal mixture, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in blackberries. Coat 2 muffin pans with vegetable cooking spray; spoon batter into muffin pans, filling three-fourths full.

2. Bake at 450° for (I baked mine for 14 minutes) 15 to 17 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes. Remove from pan to wire rack.

Yield: Makes 2 dozen muffins (I made 6 muffins)