Coming Home To An Empty Fridge....

I just got home from a very relaxing (mini) vacation in Glacier National Park. My cousins have a cabin on lower Saint Mary's Lake, and they were nice enough to let Chad and I borrow it for a couple days. We couldn't have asked for nicer weather...the sun shined and the days were filled with lounging, reading, naps, and swimming...even a couple boat adventures (with only one oar mind you!).
Whenever I go out of town, I avoid grocery shopping before leaving- I buy a lot of fresh produce and since it spoils so quickly, it just doesn't make sense. We left early this morning, without breakfast, and by the time we finished the 2 hour drive from cabin to studio, I was starving. Chad headed to work, and I went inside to forage for some food. I came up with a few leftover ingredients that needed to be used, and out those, brown butter-coconut-cranberry muffins were born.


Brown Butter Coconut Cranberry Muffins

2 Cups all purpose flour
2/3 Cup sugar - plus 2 tsp. for sprinkling (I used some spare vanilla sugar)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 Cup dried cranberries
1/2 Cup unsweetened dried coconut
2/3 Cup coconut milk (You can use light if you like)
1/4 Cup brown butter
1 tsp. lime zest
1/2 tsp vanilla paste (or extract)
1 Large egg

-Preheat oven to 400
-In a small sauce pan, melt butter over med-low heat. Cook until the butter turns golden brown and smells nutty (keep a close eye on the butter, it goes from brown to burnt VERY quickly) set aside to cool slightly
-In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt
-Stir in cranberries and dried coconut (Break up any clumps of stuck-together berries)
-Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients
-Whisk together coconut milk, egg, vanilla, zest, and brown butter (Make sure to scrape off and add all the brown bits of butter from the bottom of your sauce pan)
-Pour liquid mixture into the well
-Mix with a wooden spoon until JUST combined. Do not over-mix!
-Spoon muffin batter into greased muffin tin (will make 12 medium sized muffins, or 6-7 large muffins)
-Sprinkle remaining sugar on top of the batter
-Bake 15-20 minutes until golden brown