I have tried to make successful corn bread several times throughout my life. Most of the time, this apparently easy bread just doesn’t turn out for me. For the past few Thanksgivings, I didn’t bother making it to avoid the embarrassment. Everywhere I read though, corn bread is supposed to be so easy that you can whip up the batter in under 15 minutes. Not so in my kitchen. I probably shouldn’t be admitting to this, but whenever I’ve made corn bread, it turns out to be tasteless, dry as a bone, or, as what happened to me this week, a collapsed, inedible block.
I was determined to get over the curse of the corn bread this year. Because corn was a staple for the Pilgrims, I had to master it for my Thanksgiving Day table. “The True Thanksgiving” episode from Alton Brown’s Food Network show provides an entertaining and informative view into what the Pilgrims might have eaten at the first Thanksgiving.
I am proud to say that I’ve finally made a successful batch of corn bread in the form of these lemon-rosemary corn muffins.
OK, OK. So the Pilgrims wouldn’t have had lemons at that point. Probably not rosemary either. I added these ingredients anyway to make sure the muffins would be tasty. Next time, I’ll try again to make plain, earthy corn bread as it was historically meant to be made and eaten.
Making corn bread really should be easy. I haven’t quite yet figured out what always goes wrong when I try to make it, but at least for these muffins, everything went according to plan.
I mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl, including chopped rosemary and lemon zest.
I used an electric mixer to mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. I could have done this by hand, I suppose! I put the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients just like I would for any other cake. For my corn bread flop above, I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
I filled the cupcake cavities about 3/4 of the way full with the batter and then popped them in the oven for a quick bake.
While they are to be eaten during dinner, they are actually pretty good standing on their own. Success at last!
| Cook Time | 15-20 minutes |
| Servings |
muffins
|
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped about 3 rosemary sprigs, or 1 teaspoon dried rosemary, chopped
- zest of 1 lemon
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
Ingredients
|
|
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Grease a 12 muffin/cupcake pan.
- Combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, sugars, rosemary, and lemon zest. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix together eggs, sour cream, and butter.
- Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture in two additions. Mix until just combined.
- Spoon batter into the pan by filling each cavity 3/4 of the way full.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lightly golden brown and cake tester comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Serve warm or at room temperature.
