Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Cornbread muffins

On Sunday we planned a lunch of soup. It was basically a beef-based stock with tomato and vegetables, including okra, that we had in the freezer. Ken mixed a small amount of another similar soup into it and hotted it up a bit with a spicy pepper paste. We thought that cornbread would be a great accompaniment.

You can see the bits of corn inside the muffins. Tasty!

The cornbread we make is US southern style, not the sweetened cornbread that I was familiar with up north. There is no sugar in this recipe. The only changes I made were to substitute plain yogurt for the buttermilk and to add corn kernels to the batter. I also baked it in a muffin tin instead of a pan.

Savory corn muffins
  • 2 cups cornmeal
  • 10 oz (300 g) canned or frozen corn kernels
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 1 tbsp melted butter (bacon fat would work great)
  • 1 cup plain yogurt
  • 1/2 cup cold water
  • 2 eggs, well beaten
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 425ºF (I used 210ºC, slightly cooler).

Put the cornmeal into a large bowl. If using canned or frozen corn kernels, cook them for about five minutes in the 1 cup of boiling water. Drain the cooking liquid into the cornmeal along with the melted butter. Stir well. If you have a stick blender, process half of the corn so its broken up, otherwise coarsely chop half with a knife or leave it all whole; your choice. Set the corn aside.

Stir the yogurt, cold water, beaten eggs, soda, and salt into the cornmeal mixture. Now add the broken and whole corn and beat in thoroughly. Pour the batter into buttered muffin tins. You can fill them pretty full. If there is batter left, save it for a second batch.

Bake in a preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes until a wooden skewer inserted into one of the muffins comes out clean. Cool and serve.

They're really good spread with butter!

A side note: I have a convection oven, which means that a fan blows inside the oven to maintain an even temperature. Whenever I make muffins, the convection fan tends to blow the soft batter to one side as it rises, making the muffins look lop-sided (you can kind of see the effect on the cut muffin in the photo). If I remember (which I didn't for this batch), I use the non-convection setting on the oven so the fan doesn't blow and the muffins come out looking symmetrical.

8 comments:

  1. yummy! since I am north of the mason-dixon line, I make my cornbread sweet and add canned corn to lively it up. now you are making me hungry, and it's only 3a here! :(

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  2. Freezer soup....
    hadn't thought of that...
    Fridge Soup Friday is the norm here...
    and then left-over portions end up in the freezer for "carntbeassed" days...
    now you've got me thinking.
    We've a fan oven, but I've never noticed Pauline's muffins having a lean on them...
    to busy eating them, I suppose!!

    The WV is "portxim 31112"... sounds like a telephone number!
    No. 31112 as the photo... some of your American roads are damn long, Walt

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  3. Hey there, Walt!! "Your" commercial for the iPads came on my TV last night during the 10:00 news!! There was your photo, right there in front of me, for everyone to see :))v Pretty cool :)

    Glad to know Bertie is feeling fine again :)

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  4. Cannot remember the last time I had cornbread, but I do like it.

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  5. Keep the fan on. Those muffins have personality!

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  6. David loves corn muffins; his favorite. But he always makes them from Jiffy. I can't get him to try 'homemade' - I want to see if this makes a difference.

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  7. Oooh, I love corn muffins and honey!

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  8. I have always loved cornbread and muffins. I like putting corn kernels into the mix but my daughters asked specifically if I would make them "without corn pellets." Then they went to college and I could make them the way I wanted again!

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