I Heart Corn

So...after the whole potato salad revelation, I was still on a corn kick that I couldn't shake. So I just went with it, and made some corn muffins!

I know I already ranted about how much I love corn, so I won't repeat myself here. But I do LOVE corn bread yet haven't baked much of my own, mostly because I seem to have a hard time deciding between the savoury and sweet recipes out there and I always feel like I need to have something to eat the cornbread with. But...corn muffins are easier. Corn muffins can be eaten on their own! And they should always be sweet! (or at least I think so).

For this recipe, I adjusted Michael Ruhlman's basic quickbread ratio for muffins, adding in cornmeal and corn. And it was really good! Slightly but not too sweet, plenty of corn flavour from the kernels and not too crumbly. A couple of notes...I actually used a lightly grilled corn cob for this because it was all I had left of the fresh corn. I wouldn't do this again though, because the corn chunks came out a bit dry since they had already been cooked once (I assumed this would happen, but again it was all I had). I also reduced the egg from 2 to 1, because I was also looking at other random cornbread recipes and decided for some reason that this was a good idea. I don't think it was - the muffins, while delicious were a bit on the dense side. I think the extra egg would help with that so I'm going to leave that as the amount of eggs in the recipe.

Corn Muffins
1 1/4 cups cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk*
1 corn cob, hulled (you can also use frozen or canned corn here - it should be about a cup)

*I never actually keep buttermilk in the house, so to substitute, combine 1 tbsp of white vinegar and enough milk to make one cup and let sit at room temperature for about 10 minutes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit

1. Combine cornmeal, flour, sugars, salt and baking powder in a medium-sized bowl.

2. Whisk together butter, egg and buttermilk. Pour into the dry mixture and stir until just combined.

3. Add in corn kernels

4. Drop by spoonful into a greased muffin tin, about 3/4 full. This will make enough for a dozen.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.