I’ve made many different recipes for corn bread and corn muffins.  I happened to have on hand a mix from Stonewall Kitchen for cornbread which I used for corn muffins.  Although I usually am pretty negative towards mixes, I have to admit that this one was great.  The muffins had that perfect taste between savory and sweet, slightly reminiscent of the sweet Thomas Toaster Cakes I loved when I was a kid.  My daughter in law really enjoyed them, and she requested I make some for her to take back to Vietnam with her.  I didn’t have another of that mix, so I had to choose from one of the many recipes I’ve used in the past.  I settled on one I haven’t made for years from my old Fannie Farmer Cookbook.  The muffins came out great.  The second batch I made, I divided the batter in half and I added 1 cup of fresh blueberries to the one half.  I actually added an extra tablespoon of sugar the second time I made the muffins, and I liked the end result.

Adapted from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook recipe entitled, “Rich Corn Cake” :

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal  (I used Quaker yellow cornmeal)
• 1 cup organic unbleached flour (I always use King Arthur Flour)
• 4 tablespoons sugar (I used 5  the second time)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder (original recipe calls for cream of tartar)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sour cream (I use Daisy because it is the purest brand of sour cream)
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 2 extra large eggs
• 4 tablespoons melted butter (I used salted) 
• optional – blueberries-  about 1 cup for half the batter if you want to do half muffins plain and half with blueberries.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Put 12 paper muffin cups in muffin tin.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt.

Mix milk, eggs, sour cream with a whisk.  Then pour in melted butter (but slightly cooled).  Mix with whisk. Add wet ingredients to dry.  Mix quickly with rubber spatula just till combined and you can’t see any streaks of the flour.  Scoop into muffin cups.

Bake 20 minutes, just till tops are starting to brown.

Eat hot with lots of butter!

I’ve been wanting  a muffin that’s bigger and tastes more like a bakery muffin.  This is what I came up with. They are fluffy, perfectly sweet, and a little lemony.  These take a little more effort than my original blueberry muffins, and although I do like these, I’m still stuck on my originals.

Ingredients:

• • 3 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 heavy cups blueberries dusted with flour
• 1 cup Greek yogurt (I use Fage)
• 2 extra large eggs
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• scant 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 scant cup sugar
• about 1 teaspoon lemon zest (zest from maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of one lemon)
• optional sugar for sprinkling on muffins

Directions:

Preheat oven to 385 degrees.  Put paper muffin cups in standard 12 muffin tin.  (This makes about 16 muffins though, so you’ll need 2 muffin tins.)

In large mixing bowl, put flour, powder, soda, and salt, and mix gently.  In second bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, yogurt, orange juice, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla.

Pour wet ingredients into dry.  Gently fold dry into wet.  When about 1/2 way folded in, add the blueberries, and continue to fold flour and berries in just until you don’t see any more flour.  Use an ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into muffin cups.  Cups will be filled almost to the top.

Bake at 385 degrees for about 15 minutes.  Then reduce the temperature to 350.  Bake about 30-40 minutes until tops are nicely browned but not burnt, and a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool on wire racks.  Sprinkle with sugar after muffins come out of muffin for that professional look.

I found a great recipe for chocolate chip muffins on a blog called evilshenanigans.com. I adapted the recipe and made a few changes, and the muffins were really delicious.

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter melted
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup orange juice
3/4 cup sour cream or plain yogurt (I used organic Wegman’s plain yogurt)
2 large eggs
1 2/3 cups semi-sweet or bittersweet mini chocolate chips (I used King Arthur Flour‘s bittersweet chocolate chips, which are not mini chips, but are smaller than standard chocolate chips)
1 tablespoons flour

Heat the oven to 375 F and spray mini muffin tins with cooking spray (this recipe made 30 mini muffins). In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate bowl combine the melted butter, vanilla, orange juice, sour cream or yogurt, and eggs.In a small bowl toss together the chocolate chips with the 1 tablespoons of flour until they are well coated.Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until the dry ingredients are moist.  Add the chocolate chips and fold to incorporate.Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes or until the center of the muffins springs back when lightly pressed, a toothpick comes out clean, and the tops are just starting to turn golden brown. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

My very nice co-teacher in school, Doris Fisher, bakes these muffins on a regular basis for her friends and family.  Luckily for me, she brought some in to school for me to sample.  They were delicious!  These muffins are a breeze to make and they freeze beautifully, too.  Enjoy!

for the muffins:

• 3 extra large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1 16 oz. can pure pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups unbleached flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon (or 2 if you like a more cinnamony flavor)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1  teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Spray mini muffin pans (recipe makes 48 mini muffins)

In large mixing bowl, blend eggs, sugar, oil, pumpkin, and vanilla.  Whisk till nicely blended.  Then  and add everything else but the chips, mixing in just until blended with a rubber spatula.  Then add chips and fold in.  Scoop out batter into prepared pans, and bake 23-35 min till muffins are lightly browned around edges and toothpick comes out clean.

This is a very simple, but perfect recipe for blueberry muffins.  I adapted this recipe from one I got from a mother of one of my daughter Randi’s friends when Randi was in the second grade.  So I’ve been making this recipe for about 17 years.  And in all that time, I have never tasted a better muffin than this.  I have given this recipe out to countless friends and family.  One of my mother’s and my wonderful friends, Sherill, who is a marvelous baker, adores this recipe.  Whenever she sees me, she thanks me for giving her this recipe.  If you bake a batch, you will discover the wonderful taste and texture of these muffins, and you will be hooked, too!

• • 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour (Sometimes, I use 1 cup organic unbleached King Arthur flour plus 1/2 cup organic white whole wheat King Arthur flour, or 3/4 cup of each but my daughter uses all whole wheat- the 1 1/2 cups.  I prefer the mix of the two.  When I do this, I add a little more milk, just maybe a tablespoon to adjust for the heavier flour). 5/31/13- I added about 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice too, as I had the extra lemon- very nice, but not necessary. 5/31/14- I added a little lemon zest and the lemon juice- liked it.
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar (I’ve been reducing this to a little less than the 1/2-somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 now)

• 1 extra large egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use corn, canola, or extra-light olive oil, but light olive oil is my preference)
• 1/4 cup whole milk (You can also use lowfat or skim if that’s what you have on hand)
• 1/4 cup orange juice (no pulp, and not from concentrate- I have also squeezed juice straight from an orange)
• about 2 cups fresh- preferably or 1  1/2 cups frozen blueberries, rinsed and then dried with a paper towel, dusted with flour before adding to mixture

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, and put muffin cups into a standard 12 muffin tin.  In a large mixing bowl, put flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Whisk by hand just to blend the dry ingredients.  Set aside.

Measure the oil into a one or two cup pyrex measuring cup, add the 1/4 cup milk to the oil, then the 1/4 cup orange juice.  Crack the egg in, then mix with fork to blend.

Make a well in the dry ingredients.  Pour the wet ingredients in; fold the wet ingredients into the dry with a rubber spatula only until they are just blended.  Do not overmix! When the mixture is still lumpy, gently fold in the blueberries.  Spoon the batter into the muffin cups- about 3/4 cup full.  Bake them about 25 minutes until they are browned on top.  Cool the pan on a wire rack until the muffins are cool enough to take out.

Note- I make another variety by using jam instead of blueberries.  I spoon a little batter in each muffin cup.  I use a miniature ice cream scoop to measure out enough batter just to cover the bottom of the muffin cup.   Then I put about a teaspoon or so of either raspberry, strawberry, cherry jam on top of the batter.  Then, I top the jam off with another scoop of batter.  Just pop these jam muffins in the oven.  Your children will love these as much as mine do!

Another variation is to leave the berries out, and mix in about 6 oz of semi-sweet chocolate chips with the batter.