Saturday, October 27, 2018

Corn Muffins

I made corn muffins this afternoon. Haven't had them in ages. They're so good!
I use an altered version of a recipe I used to have in The New Laurel's Kitchen Cookbook. That recipe called for honey, but I don't like honey and it doesn't like me (upsets my stomach), so I never buy it. I just use sugar. The recipe may also call for wheat germ (I don't remember now and the book didn't make it to Ireland with us). I don't use wheat germ and have no idea whether one can even buy that here, so if that was part of the recipe, I would have just used extra cornmeal or flour.

Usually when I would make these in the past, I would end up with batter that was far too wet and runny and then I'd have to add more dry ingredients. I remembered this time, so altered things from the start, cutting down on the amount of milk by 3/4 cup and adding an extra 1/4 cup of flour. In the original recipe, there was a range given for eggs and oil/melted butter. I use the lower end of that range.

Here's my version:
Stir together the following dry ingredients:
--2 cups coarse ground maize/corn meal
--3/4 cup wholemeal/whole wheat flour (the original recipe may have called for whole wheat pastry flour, which I've never seen here, but even when I was in the US, I just used regular whole wheat flour)
--1 teaspoon each salt and baking powder
--1/2 teaspoon bread soda/baking soda
--1-3 tablespoons of sugar (I used 2)

In a separate container, mix together
--1 1/4 c buttermilk or soured milk
--1 egg
--1 tablespoon oil or melted butter

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just until batter is moistened and still lumpy. Here is where I can evaluate--if it's too dry, I can add another egg or a splash of milk. If too wet, I throw in a tad more flour. Today it was perfect.

Spoon into lined or greased muffin tins and bake at 220C in a fan oven or 425F for 20-25 minutes.

I have always loved hot corn bread with butter--it was nice to have that again. I threw together a quick veggie chilli/chili to go with the muffins by stirring around a chopped onion, chopped yellow bell pepper, a few cloves of garlic(chopped) in some olive oil. When the onion was translucent, I tossed in some oregano, parsley, coriander leaf, ground coriander, and cumin and stirred everything around for another minute or so. Then I added a can of chopped tomatoes in juice, a can of kidney beans (drained), and the rest of a container of tomato puree (tomato paste) that I had left from making last night's pizza. I let that all simmer, then ladled it out and added some cheddar cheese and grated some hot chilli mixture on top. Yum!
 Tonight we change the clocks back, so I will have an extra hour available to me to do whatever it is I am doing at 2 a.m. Winter time, here we come!!! Yippee!



2 comments:

NanaDiana said...

Oh!!! That sounds so so good. It is rather a staple around these parts with chili. I had never had that combination before moving to Wisconsin.
Your recipe sounds delicious, Shari. Have one for me, will you? lol xo Diana

Lynne said...

Well it sounds good, looks good . ..
But, I am not a fan of anything corn . . .
Corn bread, corn muffin, corn chowder.
Plain ole’ corn on the cob appeals to me . . .
That’s about it . . ,