Bake

Corn Muffins From 'Savory Baking'

October 14, 2022
4.5
4 Ratings
Photo by © 2022 Mark Weinberg. Reproduced by permission of Harvest, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
  • Prep time 15 minutes
  • Cook time 25 minutes
  • makes 12
Author Notes

"If you thought I had a lot to say about cornbread, you’ll understand why corn muffins are given their own special page and treatment. I focused on making the best tasting corn muffin—just sweet enough and with a beautiful buttery flavor. These are not huge bakery-style muffins, but rather a perfect homemade muffin size—and it can be dressed up with cheese or other fixings, too." Excerpted from Savory Baking: Recipes for Breakfast, Dinner, and Everything in Between 2022 by Erin Jeanne McDowell.Erin Jeanne McDowell

Test Kitchen Notes

Corn Muffin-Style Quickbread: Reduce the baking powder to 12 g / 1 tablespoon. Lightly grease a 9x5 in/23x13 cm loaf pan with nonstick spray. Prepare the batter as directed and pour into the prepared pan. Bake at 375°F/190°C until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour.
Cheese Stuffed Corn Muffins: Reduce the brown sugar to 53 g / ¼ cup and eliminate the honey. When scooping the batter into the pan, fill each cavity about half way full. Press a 1 in / 2 ½ cm cube of cheddar cheese into the center of each muffin, then use the remaining batter to cover each piece, encasing it completely. —Food52

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Corn Muffins From 'Savory Baking'
Ingredients
  • 142 grams (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
  • 45 grams (3 tablespoons) neutral oil (like canola or vegetable)
  • 106 grams (½ cup) light brown sugar
  • 85 grams (¼ cup) honey
  • 56 grams (1 large) egg, at room temperature
  • 173 grams (1 ¼ cups) yellow cornmeal
  • 150 grams (1 ¼ cups) all-purpose flour
  • 16 grams (4 teaspoons) baking powder
  • 3 grams (½ teaspoon) baking soda
  • 6 grams (1 ½ teaspoons) fine sea salt
  • 230 grams (1 cup) buttermilk, at room temperature
  • 125 grams (3/4 cup) corn kernels (optional—drained well if canned/thawed if frozen)
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F/205°C with the oven rack in the center. Lightly grease the cavities of a muffin pan, or line with muffin liners.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter and oil together to combine. Add the brown sugar and honey, whisking to combine. Add the egg and whisk well to combine.
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well combined.
  4. Add half of this mixture to the bowl with the butter/oil and mix with a silicone spatula to combine. Add half of the buttermilk, mixing with the spatula to incorporate. Repeat this process, adding the remaining flour and buttermilk and mixing just until the ingredients are uniformly combined.
  5. Divide the batter evenly between the cavities of the prepared pan, filling each just under the top edge of the cavity. Bake for 5 minutes, then lower the temperature to 375°F/190°C, then bake for 18-22 minutes more, until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs.
  6. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving warm, or cool completely and serve at room temperature.

See what other Food52ers are saying.

I always have three kinds of hot sauce in my purse. I have a soft spot for making people their favorite dessert, especially if it's wrapped in a pastry crust. My newest cookbook, Savory Baking, came out in Fall of 2022 - is full of recipes to translate a love of baking into recipes for breakfast, dinner, and everything in between!

1 Review

Emma M. October 19, 2022
A little more cornmeal forward than other cornbread/muffins I've made because of the 50/50 ration corn to flour. Cheese was an interesting twist -- I would make sure you do cut large squares of cheese and the sharper the cheddar the better. Would make again though I don't normally have buttermilk on hand so I had to buy that special for these.