Melissa Clark's Cornmeal Muffins @LucyBurdette

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Happy February everyone! I love, love, love cornmeal muffins but I've found the ones I made in the past turned out dry, a poor shadow of the muffins from my favorite Connecticut bakery, Four and Twenty Blackbirds. When I spotted this recipe in the food section of the Times, I had to try it. I take no credit for designing this recipe--all of that goes to Melissa Clark in the New York Times food section. I do get credit for noticing how fabulous these muffins sounded, making them myself, and now encouraging you! This is not a dietetic recipe, it's for a special occasion.

Here's what you'll need:

2 sticks butter (yup, that's right, 2)
1 and 1/2 cups flour
2 cups cornmeal 
2/3 cups sugar
1 and 1/2 tablespoons baking powder (I always choose the low-sodium brand)
1/2 tsp salt (I cut this in half from 1 tsp)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup sour cream or whole milk yogurt
1/2 cup milk (you might as well use whole)
2 eggs at room temp

Preheat the oven to 400. Put cupcake liners in a cupcake pan.

Melt the butter. When it's cool, whisk in the sour cream, milk, and eggs.

In a separate bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together. 

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Drop the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle a bit of coarse sugar on the tops if you like. 

Bake until golden and beginning to brown around the edges, 18-20 minutes. Remove from the pan and serve perhaps with more butter? A little honey? 

(This was Melissa Clark's recipe from the New York Times and I can't recommend it highly enough!)

This is a perfect winter muffin--good with soup or omelets or really anything. Do you have a favorite baked treat for this season? 

In addition to Lucy's Key West food critic mysteries, she's written a thriller called Unsafe Haven! 

About Unsafe Haven: A chance meeting on the New York subway leads to the destinies of two very different women becoming intertwined with terrifying consequences in this nerve-jangling thriller.

Sixteen-year-old Addison is on the run. She's leaving her life on New York's streets behind for a new one with Rafe, armed with just his phone number on a scrap of paper. She's taking the subway to meet him in New Jersey. He'll take care of her. Or so she thinks . . .

Elizabeth Brown's world has fallen apart and she's thinking about her newly ex-fiancé. Until she locks eyes with a teenage girl while waiting for the train doors to open, and a bundle is thrust into her arms as she leaves the subway. A baby, wrapped in a dirty coat.

Elizabeth phones the number she finds in the coat pocket. Then wishes she hadn't. Someone wants Addison and the baby. And they'll do whatever it takes to get them . . .

In a major departure from her lighthearted Key West mysteries, Burdette invites readers into the world of a chilling thriller. (Unsafe Haven is) a page-turner highlighting the problem of exploited runaways.

—Kirkus Reviews

If you'd like a nibble before you buy, read the first chapter here. And if you'd like to read more about the genesis of the book, read this post from Jungle Red Writers.

Ways to buy your copy of UNSAFE HAVEN:

Book depository 

Indiebound 

Barnes and Noble 

Amazon 

Severn House 

And if this is not in your budget (which I totally get,) you can invite your local library to order a copy!

Scary Good Cornmeal Muffins for Halloween Zombies #recipe @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I'm excited about this time of year because it brings my favorite Halloween event in Key West: the zombie bike ride. Last year, John and I and a friend rode in this with 10,000 other zombies--what a blast! I loved it so much that you'll find it's the scene of the murder in KILLER TAKEOUT.

But even the scariest goblins and witches and zombies need something that isn't too sweet before they head out to gather their treats or do their tricks. These muffins are sweet enough to appeal to all ages and go perfectly with a pot of chili or soup.
 

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups cornmeal
Three-quarter cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons featherweight sodium baking powder
1 teaspoon ENER baking soda substitute ( One half teaspoon if you are using regular baking soda)
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
Two eggs
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup maple syrup
3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Grease the paper cupcake liners with a little spray on olive oil. (I didn't do this the first time and they stuck to the bottom.)

 Combine all the dry ingredients well in one bowl. Beat the eggs into the yogurt and milk. Add the maple syrup and the kosher salt and mix. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a few strokes. Fold in the butter. Try not to over stir or the muffins will be tough.  

Distribute the batter between the 12 cups. Bake for about 16 minutes until a toothpick poked into a muffin comes out clean. 

Let them rest for three minutes and then remove from the pan and serve quickly with more butter, and honey if desired. 

Serve with chili or other hearty soup and send your trick-or-treaters on their way.

PS I think these would also be very good for breakfast with a cup of blueberries folded into them. It might extend the baking time a minute or two. 

Note: By using the non-sodium baking powder and baking soda, you omit about 1500 mg of sodium in these muffins!

KILLER TAKEOUT is coming next April, but available for pre-order today!

And you can follow Lucy on Facebook,

Twitter,

Pinterest,

and Instagram!