Mini Berry Muffins

Using my mini muffin tin these berry muffins topped with a cream cheese and coconut topping are a great mini treat.  Cute to look at and perfect for an elegant tea party.   You can honestly say that you put a whole muffin in your mouth at once!  You may do that with regular muffins but that will just be between you and the muffin.  As well as your Instagram of shame.

I am deliberately making this my last post of 2016 as an homage to my hairdresser in Barbados, Gregory,  who sadly was quickly taken away from us in 2016 with cancer.   He was such a character and the first local person on the island who made me feel that my frustrations with the island were not just me.   As soon as I walked into his salon I had found my “people”.   His salon was alongside his house and I loved that he had his dogs were in there and the leopard print gowns were just perfect for a diva! 

Gregory had such amazing tales and had already packed so much into his life that you felt exhausted listening to his stories, however well-travelled you thought you were.  He had lived all over the world and could have written a book with his tales.  When he told me that he had adopted 20 dogs when living in Thailand it was an instant “OMG I love him” moment for me.   There was also a charity in Barbados he set up to help feed the less fortunate on the island (to which there are a LOT.  Ignore those glossy holiday brochures and see past the hotels when you travel there).  It was an absolute pleasure for me to help him with this charity and I just LOVED his philosophy of feeding real food to others.   Why is it that cheaper food options are the worst for you?!  It was something he also did when he lived in Thailand and he took his warm heart all over the world.  As well as some racy tales! 

Gregory started following Divalicious on Facebook and loved my recipes.  He and I were cut from the same cloth in that we are both “different” from the mainstream crowd of meat and potatoes.  I received a message from him one weekend asking me if I would make him a dessert as he was enjoying looking at my sweet recipes and desserts were not his strength in the kitchen.  His stir fries though, were legendary!  So I came up with a couple of recipes for him and this was one of them.  I didn’t want to bake a whole dessert as I knew his generosity, predicting that he would end up giving anything I baked away.  If I made small treats, there was a big chance that he would eat some himself!

Although Gregory wanted something sweet I was not going to give him any high fructose fruit so thought of berries. Berries are perfect in mini muffin form too.  With coconut flour, naturally!  The cream cheese topping was going to be a bit bland by itself in such a small size so I added some desiccated coconut to give it texture and an additional taste. Obviously I put some aside from this batch for myself to “taste test” since the Chief Taster was on his travels.  I loved them and would bake them again.  As well as mini muffin form this mixture could be baked in regular muffin tins too.

When you use a mini muffin tin I thoroughly recommend that you use muffin cases as they will be easier to ease out of the tin. If you don’t and try to remove them with a knife or a spoon they may not hold their form due to the delicacy.   Let them cool down too as if you try to peel off the cases whilst warm, half the muffin will come off in the paper.

So as we say farewell to 2016, I am saying a final farewell to an amazing person who had a huge impact upon my time in Barbados.  With these muffins I will always remember you Gregory.

 

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