Recipe: Mini corn muffins

I stumbled on this recipe last week as I tossed around ideas about what to bring to my neighborhood's Halloween night potluck.

I love cornbread ... especially warm, just out of the pan. But my cornbread, made from an old family recipe, has always come out a little dry and crumbly. And I didn't want to make a pan of cornbread, I wanted to make mini muffins, which would be easier for people to pick up at a party.

So I did my usual Google search and turned up this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, a great site for yummy recipes. My changes: I used white all-purpose cornmeal, because that's what I had on hand. Instead of liquid buttermilk, which I never have on hand, I used a powdered cultured buttermilk blend made by Saco and available at most grocery stores.

My husband had picked up a can for another recipe several months ago and I'd found it squirreled away in the back of the refrigerator. This helped to turn out some delicious, moist little muffins. I used it earlier this week to make buttermilk pancakes and it was, again, a winner.

Smitten Kitchen's recipe for Corn Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal, preferably stone-ground (I used white, all-purpose cornmeal)
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional - I used this)
1 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil (I used canola oil)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 to 1 1/3 cup corn kernels - fresh, frozen or canned. Drain and pat dry the canned ones.

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease or line a muffin pan with paper muffin cups.

Mix together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. This is also where you'd add the powdered buttermilk if you're using it. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk (or water if using the powered variety per the product's directions), melted butter, oil, egg and yolk together until well blended.

Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and stir. There will be lumps, which is fine. Add the corn kernels and spoon the batter into the muffin cups.

Regular-sized muffins bake for 15 to 18 minutes. Minis need only about 12 minutes. The tops should be golden and a thin knife should come out clean when stuck into the center of the muffin. Cool for five minutes before taking the muffins out of the mold.

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