Bakery style, high domed, moist and sweet corn muffins made using the muffin method. Simple and quick to prepare, and they maintain their moist crumb for days.
What’s a bakery style corn muffin? It’s a sweet, high domed corn muffin with a soft tender texture. There has to be a good amount of cornmeal in them without the texture being grainy or crumbly. You can describe these as fluffy, cake-like, and delicious.
Corn muffins have been my nemesis. I have spent years trying to perfect them. They’re the official state muffin of Massachusetts, which added some pressure since I’m a born and raised Bay Stater.
Have you ever gone to a bakery or cafe, and tried a corn muffin? How about those ginormous muffins at Costco? Now try to duplicate that at home. Remember, you’re making a muffin and not a cupcake so please, no creaming of butter and alternating flour and milk into the batter because that’s making a cupcake and not a muffin. You need to follow the rules, dry in one bowl, wet in another, mix, bake, and eat.
It seems I’ve tried every recipe in cookbooks and on endless blogging sites and all have failed me. The blogging sites had only a few variations then they basically repeated the same recipe from the famous test kitchen. I don’t want to soak the cornmeal and I wouldn’t like pieces of corn in my muffin. I want a simple, sweet corn muffin using the muffin method which requires no mixer. Back to the drawing board.
Goals:
- A corn muffin that isn’t flat and has a high dome preferably with cracks on top
- Has a decent amount of cornmeal in it
- Sweet and tasty
- Moist and delicate crumb
- Won’t turn into hockey pucks after a few hours or next day
Well my beautiful friends, I’ve done it. These corn muffins:
- Aren’t flat
- Have a good amount of corn with a little extra corn ingredient
- Are sweet and moist (remember, sugar is considered a wet ingredient thereby adding moisture)
- Maintain their moist crumb until next day or two or three!
How, Natalie, how?!
Well, we’re going to bake these in a 400 degrees oven to give a boost to the leavenings. There’s no need to lower the temperature either. It’s a constant temperature from start to finish.
I use a good amount of flour and cornmeal using stone ground cornmeal instead of coarse cornmeal.
One and a quarter cups of sugar adds flavor and moisture. You can use 1 cup if you like, but I felt the extra 1/4 cup was perfect. Remember, I’m a Northerner.
Sour cream is added for richness and moisture.
Oil is used rather than butter to keep it moist for a day. I’ve actually put a muffin aside and after 3 days it was still moist.
Finally, cornstarch is used to make a tender crumb and it’s a corn ingredient – so there.
This batter is thick and it may seem like you have too much batter for the pan, but it’s just enough for each cup and will mound slightly above the rim of the pan. I use a muffin tin that has 1/2 cup capacity.
I place the muffin tin on a baking sheet for 2 reasons:
- The first time I made these, I wasn’t absolutely sure they wouldn’t overflow. They didn’t.
- Using a baking sheet makes for easy removal of the pan from the oven. I’ve indented too many muffin tops with the thumb of my oven mitt to count.
As you can see, these rose beautifully.
Want more breakfast treats? Try:
Be happy, eat well.
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Bakery Style Corn Muffins
Print Recipe Pin RecipeIngredients
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 1 ¼ cup sugar*
- 1 cup cornmeal
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon fine salt
- ⅔ cup oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup sour cream
Instructions
- Preheat oven 400 degrees.
- Grease or line tins with cupcake liners. You can also spray the liners for easy release.
- Whisk together dry ingredients together in large bowl.
- In medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, sour cream, and oil.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until combined. Don’t overmix.
- Scoop or ladle batter into muffin tins and fill each cup to the very top. This batter is thick and it may seem like you have too much batter for the pan, but it’s just enough and will mound slightly above the rim of the pan. I use a muffin tin that has ½ cup capacity per cup.
- I like to place the muffin tin on top of a baking sheet for easy removal after baking. I have indented too many muffin tops with my oven mitts. It's also a precaution to prevent any spillage - although that has never happened to me.
- Place muffins in oven and bake for 22 to 25 minutes or until tops are golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. You could rotate the muffin tin halfway through baking to ensure even cooking. Honestly, most of the time I skip this step because I don’t mind them being slightly off. I’m going to eat them, not look at them. If you are using the parchment paper liners, you may have to cook them a few minutes more because they allow the muffins to bake upwards instead of outwards like they would if using cupcake or no liners. I cook them closer to 25 minutes, but please check after 22 minutes since all ovens vary.
- Let muffins cool in muffin tin on a cooling rack for 5 minutes, then remove muffins from tin and continue to cool.
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