Corn Muffins

These Corn Muffins are soft, sweet, and tender. They’re full of corn kernels for a flavorful moist muffin that’s pure comfort food!

One of the things I love the most about baking is sharing. Giving out the delectable treats that I create. I love walking into my 2nd period video film class with a plate of salted chocolate chip cookies, or my 4th period math class with a bag full of shortbread bars. As soon as I walk in and people realize I have treats, people begin politely asking “Rachel, can I have one please?”. It starts out kind and nice, but morphs into the same people who’ve already politely asked, walking up and taking as many cookies as their hands can hold. While other people get frustrated at all the people stealing cookies, I have to say, it’s an ego boost.

I love being able to make people smile through the right combination of butter, sugar, and flour. It never ceases to amaze me that the simplest treats can bring people such pure, unfettered bliss. A simple cookie, a lightly frosted cupcake, or an unadorned brownie let people taste every great flavor. However, they also allow people to remember the days when their mom would pull out the pan of brownies from the oven and they would burn their fingers trying to get the first one out of the pan. Simple, in baking, can bring lots of happiness. While the embellished cake always brings oohs and aahs, it seems a simple chocolate chip cookie can never be beat. Same for cornbread.

I love cornbread. I could really eat cornbread day and night. While I’m a person who loves whole kernels in it, some people are very anti-kernels. Then their is the whole North vs. South debate: should you sweeten your cornbread, as we Northerner’s do, or should you leave of the sugar and double the cornmeal? I’m a Northerner when it comes to cornbread, but I’ll eat any kind of cornbread. Give me some honey butter and I’m in cornbread heaven. One of my favorites surprisingly comes from Souplantation. Their cornbread comes in square muffin shapes, so when I was aimlessly roaming around Marshall’s and saw a square muffin tin, cornbread popped into my head and refused to leave until some entered my mouth. I bought the pan, went straight home and made cornbread. I used the corn muffin recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Baking Cookbook (which has so far not failed me for any recipes – it’s highly recommended), stirred in some canned corn, whipped up some honey butter, and let myself be in corn muffin heaven.

I brought a few (4, to be exact) to school the next day. They were gone before I could blink and I was quickly promising to make more. So I did, but forgot them at home. When I got to school, anger ensued, including objects being kicked across the room. I had realized how much love I could have by sharing food (and how much hate by forgetting it) and promised I wouldn’t forget again. So I now have corn muffin sitting by my side, and I’m convincing myself not to shove them all into my mouth. So, do yourself (and your family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, ect.) a favor, and whip these up. Their easy, and could not be more delicious. Just don’t forget to bring them when their promised, someone may get hurt.

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Corn Muffins

Author Rachel

Ingredients

• 2 cups 10 oz all purpose flour
• 1 cup 5 oz yellow cornmeal
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup 5 1/4 oz sugar
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 8 tablespoons 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 large eggs
• 1 11 oz can whole corn kernels, drained (optional)

Instructions

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the sour cream, sugar, milk, melted butter, and eggs together until smooth. Gently fold the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture with a rubber spatula until just combined. Do not overmix. If using, fold in the corn kernels.
3. Using a greased 1/3-cup measure, portion the batter into each muffin cup. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with just a few crumbs attached, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.
4. Let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then flip out onto a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Adapted from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book