Cornmeal Cranberry Muffins

***We get our fine cornmeal from Hazzard Free Farms, which you can order online, using their floriani flint cornmeal for this recipe. It’s bright yellow. When we make this with blueberries, we choose the bloody butcher cornmeal which is pale purple. Not only is it a chance to use another awesome varietal, it doesn’t turn green when the blue berries meet the yellow corn.

Yield- 12 large muffins, maybe less maybe more depending on your muffin pans.

Muffin Batter

25g    flour ap

18g         baking powder

8g         baking soda

2g         salt

140g       butter

480g    milk

240g    cornmeal floriani flint fine

80g       sugar

160g       honey

8g         orange zest

160g       egg (about three large)

80g       sour cream

120g    cranberries

1. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda together and set aside.
2. Place the butter and milk in a small pot and bring to a boil. When the starts to boil immediately remove from heat and whisk in the cornmeal. Whisk until there are no lumps and the cornmeal has soaked up all the liquid, about 15 seconds. Transfer the porridge to the bowl of the stand mixer fit with a paddle.
3. Add the sugar, honey, salt, orange zest, egg, and sour cream to the and paddle on medium speed until evenly combined, about 2 minutes.
4. Add the reserved flour mixture and paddle on low speed until evenly combined.
5. Add the cranberries and mix until even.
6. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and use a spatula to mix the batter top to bottom, to ensure the flour and cranberries are evenly distributed. Transfer to a large container and store in the fridge until ready to bake.

Cornmeal Crumbles

100g       cornmeal

30g       flour

80g       sugar

75g       butter cold, cut in 1 inch cubes

2g           salt

5g         orange zest

1. Place the cornmeal, flour, sugar, butter, salt, and orange zest in the bowl of a robot coupe and pulse until fine and crumbly like very small streusel.
2. Transfer to a container and store in the refrigerator until ready to use.

To Bake

1. Grease large muffin tins well.
2. Use a large round scoop to deposit one very round topped scoop into each cavity. Alternately spoon it in, making sure to pile it tall in the center.
3. Cover each muffin with a generous amount of cornmeal crumbles, letting it pile up in the center mostly (this ensures it covers the muffin and doesn’t form a halo of crispies around the edges).
4. Bake in a 325 degree convection oven set to high fan (or 350 in a home oven) for 15 minutes, then rotate the pan front to back, and bake for another 10 minutes.  Test each muffin to make sure they are done. We temp these muffins and bake them to 200F, but you can press lightly to see if they feel set, or test them with a cake tester, waiting for the tester to come out clean. The muffins are very moist and need to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before you unpan them, or they might fall apart. They are extremely delicious with honey butter.