My Favorite Corn Muffin Recipe

I like having fresh baked corn muffins for breakfast. After experimenting for quite a while, I’ve come up with a recipe that makes great tasting muffins that aren’t quite as bad for your waist-line as they taste.

I do something a little odd, but it works for me. In the past, I always had trouble getting my muffins to rise up nicely. I eventually figured that I was mixing the batter too much, or I was moving too slowly, or something, but things rarely came out right. I finally hit upon the idea of mixing the baking powder with the butter and shortening. This way, most of the baking powder is covered with oil, until the batter is heated by the oven, so the reaction of the baking powder with water, which causes the muffins to rise, happens more in the muffin cup and in the oven, where it’s supposed to. Since I started doing this, it takes a little longer to make the muffins, but they come out perfect every time.

Ingredients:

• 1 Cup Flour
• 1 Cup Corn Meal (Get the good stuff)
• 2 Tablespoons Butter (room temperature)
• 2 Tablespoons Shortening (Butter Flavored)
• 2 Tablespoons Splenda for Baking, or 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• 1 Teaspoon Salt
• 1 squirt of honey (optional)
• 1 Cup Milk (room temperature) Slightly sour milk is just fine.
• 2 Eggs (room temperature)

Hardware:

• Small Bowl
• Muffin Tin (12 normal or 6 giant)
• Medium Mixing Bowl
• 2 Forks
• 1 Ice Cream Scoop
• 1 Spatula
• I have no idea what it’s called, but it’s used to cut butter and shortening into flour.
• 2 Cup Capacity Bowl

Preheat Oven to 375 F

1. I take the eggs, milk and butter out an hour ahead of time, to let them warm up to room temperature.
2. Combine Flour, Corn Meal, Salt, Sugar, mix thoroughly in the mixing bowl. If you wish, you can add a single squirt of honey to the mixture at this point, as long as you stir it in well.
3. Add the eggs to the milk, in the 2 cup capacity bowl, and stir vigorously with fork. (You can leave out one or more yolks if you want to lower the cholesterol content.)
4. In the small bowl, combine the butter and shortening. Use the fork to mix them.
5. Add the baking powder to the butter and shortening, mix with fork, until creamy.
6. Use spatula to transfer mixture to medium bowl holding the flour and corn meal.
7. Cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Continue until the mixture is crumbly.
8. Add milk and eggs to dry ingredients. Mix quickly with just enough strokes to make sure all ingredients are wet.
9. Use ice cream scoop to transfer batter to muffin cups. Fill each one about 1/2 to 2/3.
10. Put in oven.
11. Bake for 25 minutes.
12. Serve warm.

You can substitute 1/4 cup whole wheat flour for 1/4 cup of the corn meal, if you want to add a nice twist to the muffins and increase the fiber content. You can also use whole grain white corn meal instead of the whole wheat flour, if you wish.