Adapted from one of my favorite classic cook books, The Gourmet Cook Book vol 1: Corn Bread for Northerners Only

Sift 1 ½ cups flour with 3 teaspoons double-action baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ cup sugar. Add ½ cup yellow cornmeal and mix well. Beat 2 eggs and add 1 cup milk and 3 tablespoons melted butter or bacon drippings. Combine with dry ingredients, stirring only until well mixed. Pour batter in baking pan or muffin tins, coated with butter, cooking spray or shortening. Bake in hot over (425 F for 12-30 minutes, depending on pan).

I added about 2 teaspoons of curry powder to the dough to see what would happen. It really brings a dimension of flavor and fragrance. Hubby preferred over plain corn muffin. This first time I added to only part of the dough after already mixed just to experiment, but would be easier to incorporate into dry ingredients portion. Alternatively, you could just make up some curry butter and spread on plain muffins. For my mini-muffins it took about 13 minutes to bake.

Serve warm with butter and honey.

I made 2 dozen mini muffins start to finish in 40 minutes from scratch, AND experimented. Hard to make the case for using a mix. I have previously kept Marie Callendar’s mix on hand. While, it turns out fine and only requires you add water, there is something eerie about the ingredients. I am trying to pay much more attention to this and really going for whole foods. I consider foods whole even if made into something else, though contrary to others’ definitions. What the heck is sodium acid pyrophosphate and why did the corn cones get degermed (how do they do this and what is a cone?)?

Answer:

• Corn Cones – Fine, uniform meal used in processed foods such as corn dog mix or hush puppies, extruded cereals, muffin and dry bakery mixes. Ok, not as freaky as it sounds….
• Degermed – corn where the nutritious germ has been removed from the corn, and it’s not whole grain. I’ll keep my germs please.
• Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate -a GRAS (Generally recognized as safe) chemical, used for a variety of things, but most likely in this mix it is an acid source for reaction with baking soda to leaven baked goods. You may also find it keeping the color in canned seafood, in leather processing it facilitates removal of hair, feathers and scurf (this word needs no definition, the pronunciation says it all) in animal slaughter an in petroleum production, it can be used as a dispersant in oil well drilling mud. Probably in combination with other chemicals not in this cornbread mix, but still makes a strong point.

Ditch the mix!

And on that note, I leave you with a steamy alternative image of the muffins. Enjoy! These are A-Maize-Ing……

Sources:

• http://www.didionmilling.com/dry-corn-mill/corn-products/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disodium_pyrophosphate