Corniest Corn Muffins

I am finally posting about Dorie's Corniest Corn Muffins! These seem to be one of the most popular recipes in the book Baking From My Home To Yours and with good reason, they are delicious! You can find this recipe here at Serious Eats with a nice little commentary from Dorie, or you can find it here at Jilla's blog -- she was the hostess for this recipe when they were baked with Tuesdays with Dorie in March 2011. I don't remember why I missed these back then, I'm guessing it was because my oldest son's 5th birthday was early last March and we were busy celebrating all week long :)

I love all kinds of corn muffins so was excited to finally give these a try, I'd been wanting to bake them forever!

Corniest Corn Muffins

Dorie Greenspan -- Baking From My Home To Yours, my tiny changes in italic

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal
6 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg (optional) (I left this out, I love nutmeg but the family, not so much)
1 cup buttermilk (I used 1 cup skim milk and 4 tbsp dried buttermilk powder)
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 tablespoons corn oil
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk (I just used two whole eggs)
1 cup corn kernels (add up to 1/3 cup more if you’d like), fresh, frozen or canned (in which case they should be drained and patted dry) (I used a whole 14 ounce can of sweet corn kernels, after measuring out 1 and 1/3 cup, there was only about 1/3 cup left, so I just added it all in)

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. I dropped this down to 375 for some reason my muffins always get too brown for my liking at 400. Butter or spray the 12 muffin molds in a regular-size muffin tin, or fit the molds with paper muffin cups.

Working in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. In a large glass measuring cup with a spout or in another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, melted butter, oil, egg and yolk. I just mixed this all in one bowl. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy and that’s just the way it should be.

Stir in the corn kernels. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds. I had enough to fill one Bakers Secret mini loaf pan and one Betty Crocker silicone heart muffin pan...

Slide the pan into the oven and bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.

Pull the pan from the oven and carefully lift each muffin out of its mold and onto a rack to cool.

Serving: The muffins are great warm or at room temperature and particularly great split, toasted and slathered with butter or jam or both (if they’re not in breadbasket at dinner, that is). My favorite was to have a corn muffin is warm with butter and honey, yum! Definitely one of life's simple pleasures...

Storing: Like all muffins, these are best eaten the day they are made. If you want to keep them, it’s best to wrap them airtight and pop them into the freezer, where they’ll keep for about a month; re-warm in a 300°F oven, if you’d like, or split them and toast them—do that and they’ll be that much more delicious with butter.

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These were absolutely delicious! Picky husband and I both loved them with butter for breakfast! I thought the kids were going to be excited about these, especially since they like cornbread a lot and anything baked in a heart shaped muffin pan is a quick sell, but they weren't as impressed as us adults were. I added jam to theirs and they still weren't keen on them? Maybe since I don't usually add corn kernels to our cornbread recipe they were a little apprehensive with the kernels? They all love corn though so I'm not really sure why these weren't a hit with them. Oh-well, you never can tell with kids. I think these definitely appeal to the sweeter, yankee cornbread fan in me and would make them again for sure :) Wishing everyone a happy Valentine's Day!