My sister, the Obsessive-Compulsive Housekeeper, commented the other day that cooking was notoriously absent from by so-called food blog of late. (Hello – It’s called a day job…?) She put herself up as an example for me by lauding her recent foray into the kitchen to make corn muffins. In doing so, she heaped high praise on this recipe from the Heathcote Tavern in Scarsdale, NY.
So, OBS housekeeper, I’m going to make your muffins. Being a doctor, I will doctor it just a little by adding in some of last summer’s corn from my freezer.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease well a standard 12 muffin tin. Gather your ingredients. (I read recently in Cook’s that Arrowhead corn meal makes the best corn muffins. Actually, the best corn meal I ever used was fresh stone ground from Phillipsburg Manor, a working 19th century farm we visited in the Hudson Valley. Since I didn’t have that, I’m using what’s in my cabinet.)
In large bowl, mix 1 1/2 c. all purpose flour, 1 c. cornmeal, 1/2 c. sugar, 1 tbsp. baking powder and 3/4 tsp. salt.
Stir in 1/2 cup of melted butter (1 stick). (This step I didn’t understand. I would have expected to mix the melted butter in with the other wet ingredients, as if making pancake batter. But I decided to try it the way it was written. Maybe someone can explain for me why this method might be better or worse than the standard method.)
In small bowl whisk 2 large eggs, 3/4 c. Milk, 2 tbsp. Honey, and 2 tbsp. Maple Syrup until mixed.
Stir egg mixture into flour just until combined. Batter will be lumpy.
Thaw some of this summer’s leftover corn from your freezer and add it to the batter.
Spoon batter into muffin cups.
and transform the kitchen from this:
To this:
Oh, and the muffins were delicious.
Lest you leave your readers with the impression that your sister truly has OCD and lives on meds, I wanted to clear the air and say that being an obsessive housekeeper is MUCH different that obsessive compulsive. I don’t need meds, I don’t count the number of times I spray the OxyClean bathroom cleaner and if I turn the kitchen light off and on several times, it is simply to see the shining effect of the light on a newly cleaned floor.
Glad you enjoyed the muffins. Now I have to get back to the laundry.
Your Sis
I too am confused by the melted butter in the dry ingredients. Perhaps it was a modification from a recipe that calls for *cold* butter added to dry ingredients, which is how one makes biscuits and scones?
Just read your blog for the first time and I’m hooked!
As far as mixing the melted butter into the dry ingredients and not the wet the reason is this:
As you mix the butter and dry each dry particle will get completely saturated and surrounded by fat (what a dirty word!) The same principle is used when whipping up biscuits or pie crust. The reason is that now that the dry mix is fat saturated it has become hydrophobic. Your wet works will float around the dry instead of soaking into it. This keeps gluten chains from forming giving you a light, fluffy, muffin like texture instead of a dense bread like texture. Mixing a limited amount of times (10-15 turns around the bowl should do it even if there are dry pockets left) will help keep your muffins light too.
Keep up the good work Dr. P!