Wednesday Baking | Sweet Cornbread Muffins
Every Wednesday (ok, most Wednesdays!) I share a baking recipe. And lots of pictures of said baking recipe. I don't call this Wednesday Baking because I bake solely on Wednesdays...no, my oven gets a workout much more frequently than once a week! Wednesday just happens to be the day I share baking recipes with you. All the past baking posts are archived in the Wednesday Baking category, which can also be found in a tab underneath my blog header.
I recently got this recipe from a friend at church (Hi Cate!) but we've enjoyed these muffins so much, I've already made them a whole bunch of times.
And so I thought I should share the recipe with you.
If you think "sweet" and "cornbread" should never meet, you will hate this recipe because it is pretty darn sweet. But if you, like me, are never opposed to sweet things, I think you'll like these quite well. 😉
These are super-duper easy to make, so if you've only ever tried making corn muffins from a mix, you should give this a try! I promise it will only take maybe 2 minutes longer than the mix.
First, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. You can include the brown sugar here but I think it works better to wait and mix it in with the wet ingredients. I can never seem to get the brown sugar mixed up very well with the dry ingredients and then there are always brown sugar lumps in the batter.
And I hate to mix the batter much because that can result in tough muffins, so I find it to be easier to just mix the brown sugar in with the wet ingredients.
(I might not make it into photos here very often, but my legs certainly do!)
Next, mix the wet ingredients together.
Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, mixing just until the dry ingredients are moistened.
You can use muffin liners for this recipe, but part of what makes these so yummy is the crispy outside, and to get that, you'll need to grease your muffin cups.
I grease mine with butter. Because butter tastes good.
Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
(can you tell the sun went down while these were baking?)
I did march myself out onto the cold deck to try to catch the last bit of natural lighting, though. It looks cold in the picture, doesn't it? I do miss warmer days if only for the nice light they provide!
Mostly I went outside because I wanted to show you the yummy, crispy outside of these muffins.
The recipe I have says to wait 10 minutes before removing the muffins from the pans, but I've had no difficulty in removing them right away.
Now, here are a couple of health notes. If you want the most delicious version of this recipe, follow it with no modifications. The muffins won't be especially healthy, but they will be really tasty!
If you want to reduce the sugar, know that I've made them with ¼ cup of white sugar and brown sugar instead of ⅓ cup, and they do taste fine that way (just not quite AS good!). I imagine you could cut the sugar further if you wanted.
You could also feel free to reduce the amount of oil in the recipe. I've subbed ¼ cup of buttermilk for ¼ cup of the oil with good results, and you could certainly experiment with the applesauce for oil substitution, especially because these are sweet muffins to begin with (the applesauce probably wouldn't make them taste odd).
Sweet Corn Muffins-makes 12
Printable Sweet Corn Muffin Recipe
1 ¼ cups cornmeal (I use whole grain cornmeal)
1 cup all-purpose flour
⅓ cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
⅓ cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup vegetable oil
Heat oven to 425 ° F. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt.
In a separate bowl, combine egg, buttermilk, brown sugar, and oil.
Gently stir wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fill 12 greased muffin cups ¾ full. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
Today's 365 post: This is for later
I've been looking for a sweeter corn muffin! One of my goals when the kids went back to school was to make breakfast for my family every weekday. We all sit down for breakfast in the morning. I have been really good with this goal since September. I make pancakes, waffles (that was today), crepes, eggs and sometimes muffins. I will try these this week. Thanks so much.
That is so sweet of you to get up early to do all this before they go to school. Our breakfast usually consists of a bagel, cereal or reheated pancakes since my daughter gets on the bus at 7...tooo early for me be awake let alone make a real breakfast.
Yes! Me, too - I can never find a recipe for cornbread/ muffins that is as sweet as you get from the coffee shop, which is the way we love it. Even though my goal is to improve my yeast bread baking skills, I will definitely make use of this recipe. Thanks for sharing.
The funny thing is, the original name of this recipe is Coffee Shop Corn Muffins! lol
These are on the to-do list! Hope the kids like them!
These look really delicious. I too love the crispy outside that you get when you grease the muffin tins instead of using papers. I really don't understand the attraction of papers on muffins. 🙂 I have one suggestion, which I got from Alton Brown and I now use with all muffin recipes, Preheat your oven to 400, then when you put the muffins in the oven, raise the temperature to 425. By doing this the burst of heat will hit the baking soda right away and the muffins will rise higher, making them even prettier.
There's a typo in your description "You can include the brown sugar here but I think it works better to wait and mix it in with the dry ingredients." I imagine you mean "mix it in with the wet ingredients." (Sorry to have to post this publically. Feel free to delete my comment when you're done with it.)
Ooh, yes, thank you! That is indeed what I meant. Whoops.
Now you've given me another reason to bake (vs. cleaning the bathroom) today! My family loves muffins, and they are a great addition to lunch boxes! It would be fun to put a teaspoon of jam in the center of each muffin, so that there would be a surprise inside (especially if they went in a lunch box, less messy than cutting the muffin and spreading it in the middle). Thanks for another delicious looking recipe.
I'm trying to justify this recipe with my weight loss "program". I decided if it has wholesome ingredients and keeps me from eating a Snickers, it's in the program!
I love corn muffins. I'm so happy!
hey, thx for this, FG. I've gotten lazy and had been using the li'l box of Jiffy, but trying to reduce packaging waste this year. Will try to halve this recipe.
I use a similar recipe, because I was looking for the coffee shop taste too. I have found that replacing nearly all the oil with buttermilk or plain yogurt thinned with a bit of milk works in most recipes like this. I might go with just 1/4 cup or less of oil. I just use a measuring cup and come up with an approximation of each liquid ingredient that equals the total liquid measurement. It all depends on what I have on hand and what needs to be used up. Olive oil is expensive and sometimes adds a flavour note that might not be so great. I am also trying to avoid oils made from genetically modified and frankenfoods.
Can you use milk in the place of buttermilk? Have you tryed that?
I often use "clabbered" milk, which has a teaspoon or 2 of vinegar added to regular milk, instead of buttermilk. I also add frozen blueberries or cranberries and orange zest for a breakfast muffin, and only use 1/2 cup of sugar, still sweet enough for us
Oh yum, those look REALLY good! I really want to do more baking and I have been reading all of your posts and finding so many recipes to try!
That should taste very good. Thanks.
Chris likes the extra sweet in corn muffins. I make your cornbread as muffins all the time, I'll have to try these instead next time. Thanks Kristen. 🙂
I'm so enjoying your blog! I was looking for a corn muffin recipe, this sounds perfect! I usually end of purchasing cornbread from BJ's, but end up with too much, and of course, it's not very frugal.
cornbread n sweet are like tea n sweet to me, gotta have both!!
Baked these last night to go with taco soup. They were delicious. Husband, who consistently says he doesn't like cornbread/muffins, had 2 for dinner went back after dinner and had 2 more before bed. I usually use Trader Joe's cornbread mix but this is much better and I know exactly what ingredients go into them.
I made these last night and they were a HUGE hit! Thanks, Kristen. I served them with a pot of pinto beans and a fruit salad.
We had these last night with chili. So yummy!
Yay! We love these muffins! I also use 1 cup of regular milk with a teaspoon of lemon juice added to substitute for the buttermilk. I don't usually have buttermilk on hand 🙂
Have you ever tried using honey in place of sugar in your recipes......wondering how it would work out.....would there be a difference????? WE are in the process of eliminating sugar from our diet....but i soooo love baking???? Just wondering!!!!
Hooray!!! I will be making these this afternoon!!! I have been cheating with the jiffy mix, cut with white cake mix... It's okay but I have been searching for a nice rich recipe like the one you have written here. Interesting with the buttermilk, I usually replace the oil with sour cream or cream cheese. Am looking forward to this recipe!!!
Best Regards!
I ALWAYS wanted to know how to do this from scratch, how did you know!? 🙂 If I ever run out of the boxed ones now I can still make them!!!
I used 1/2 cup of white sugar instead of 1/3 and they were perfect!
I will try it:)
Tried these tonight to go with Chicken Tortilla Soup... loved them! Sweet, but not too sweet. Very easy to make! Thanks for the recipe!
What is corn meal
Ground-up corn! 🙂 Like flour, except made from corn.