Cornbread Muffin Cook-off: America's Test Kitchen

For my second cornbread attempt I went to the south, and the Best Light Recipe cookbook from the America's Test kitchen. Unlike the last recipe I tried from this book--the incredibly complicated and time consuming tomato soup--this was pretty simple and didn't require a lot of complicated steps or ingredients. I did add some things not in the recipe--following the directions from the Joy of Cooking for add ins.

Ingredients:
cooking spray
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp stevia baking blend
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 c half and half (the recipe called for buttermilk, but this is what I had)
1 large egg
1 tbs butter (I used light butter)
Add ins:
two chipoltes in adobo, seeded and rinsed
3 cloves roasted garlic
1/3 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, moving the rack down to the lower middle position. Spray the muffin tin with cooking spray (the recipe is actually for a round or square cake, I decided to do muffins--the corn muffin recipe in the book is a different animal altogether--it calls for a whole cup of sugar!)

Put 1/3 of a cup of cornmeal in a medium bowl, while the water boils. The book suggests boiling quite a bit of water and measuring out 1/3 when it is at a hard boil. I just put it in the microwave, since I don't have a kettle and don't want to get burned. The rest of the cornmeal goes into a smaller bowl with the salt, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and the cheese. Once the water is at a high boil it goes directly into the 1/3 cup cornmeal to make a thick mush. After the water was added, I melted the butter in the microwave in the same dish.
The next step is to gradually whisk in the half-n-half or buttermilk, breaking up the lumps until smooth. I then added my add ins, and a lightly beat egg and the butter. Then the dry ingredients are quickly stirred in, being careful not to over beat. This is a much softer batter than the other cornbread, and can be poured into the pre-greased pan. At this point, even before cooking, the batter has an enticing scent from the garlic and peppers, and the adobo colored the batter a lovely rosy color.

The pan goes into the pre-heated oven for about 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. These didn't rise as much as the other muffins, but they developed the most delicious crust. The book does suggest flipping it out to cool on a rack--which I haven't purchased, so I put them on a cloth. Of course, I had to eat one steaming hot out of the oven.





The Verdict:
So good--very flavorful, with the right balance of crispy corn outside, to soft inside. This has more of a cornbread feel to me, less of a muffin, and more of a delicious smokey corn goodness. I could eat these plain, with chili, warm, hot, cold, or nine days old. They are quite spicy, which I love, and need nothing to accompany them. Both of my cornbread muffins are good, but this is the one I'm likely to come back to to try again. Maybe I'm just a southern cornbread girl, though I'm not from the south!

Cornbread Muffin Cookoff--The Joy of Experimentation

So half of the folks at work have sworn off sugar, and since we have a small staff this leaves me and three or four other people to eat any goodies I bring in! So for the birthday of one of these sugar avoiding coworkers, I have made cornbread muffins. It was such a quick process that I decided to make a second batch following a different recipe, so I could see which were better.

Cornbread recipes are a dime a dozen, so I am consulting two of my most authoritative cookbooks, The Joy of Cooking  and The Best Light Recipes, from the American Test kitchen, the ones with the most information about the recipes and guidelines about how to create it right. The first I'm blogging about is The Joy of Cooking, which offers a list of ways to modify the basic recipe with different additions. One thing I've learned from reading these two recipes is that cornbread is very regional, with two main camps the southern cornbread (which is just cornmeal and no flour, and traditionally is made in a cast iron skillet) and the northern cornbread, which has flour and cornmeal. I'm making one of each kind--so they may not compare directly across.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 c yellow cornmeal
3/4 c all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp stevia cooking blend
3/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
2 tbs butter
1 cup milk
Add ins:
1/2 c grated sharp cheddar cheese
2 green onions
2 cloves of garlic grated
1 tsp chipotle seeded, rinsed and chopped fine.

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees, and spray the muffin tin with cooking spray. Melt the butter in the microwave and set aside to cool. Whisk together the dry ingredients and the cheese in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl mix the egg, milk, butter and wet add ins. In this case, I used onions, garlic, and chipolte, and a good crack of black pepper. The book has a long list of different things that might be added to change the flavor profile, and actually suggests a much larger amount of chipolte, but I'm not sure how spicy my coworkers like things!

The wet ingredients are combined with the dry ingredients just barely--the book says with just a few rapid strokes. This is a thick and chunky batter, and needs to be scooped into the dish rather than poured. Smooth over the tops, because it doesn't spread and will come out the way it goes in!

They bake in the 425 degree oven for 15-18 minutes or until nicely browned--though I found the tops were less browned than the bottoms.

 The Verdict: There is a nice crunch on the outside, with a creamy soft inside. The flavors are not overpowering the sweetness of the corn, and there is a definite muffin consistency to them. You can taste the flour in a surprising way. They are good by themselves, but are best with butter or with a main dish. I ate mine hot out of the oven with a hash made up of leftover picadillio, zucchini, mushrooms, and roasted red pepper.