Impress your family with some homemade jalapeno cornbread muffins; but don’t tell the secret that these muffins are extremely easy to make. I made the muffins to serve along with Mustard Green and Ham Soup in the accompanying post.

Easy-to-Make Muffin Varieties

Of all the baked goods that I can think of; muffins are probably the easiest to make. Just mix them up in a bowl with a wooden spoon. In fact, the less you stir, the better off the muffins come out. Muffins can be sweet or pungent. There is an endless list of ingredients to add to muffins–fruit (such as blueberries, bananas, plums ), orange zest, oatmeal, bran, nuts, flavorings (such as cinnamon). For these muffins, I added corn flour, jalapeno peppers and sugar to the basic mix. Here are the ingredients.

Ingredients

I used corn flour from Bob’s Red Mill rather than cornmeal. Corn flour is ground much finer than cornmeal–both are from the same corn source. Corn flour is white rather than yellow. Bob’s corn flour is whole grain–it includes both the germ and bran. If you cannot find corn flour, then a commercial cornmeal can be substituted; fine grind if possible. Corn flour is “gluten free”; however, this muffin also contains all-purpose flour so the muffin is not gluten-free.

For muffin variations, I tried both chopped fresh jalapeno peppers, Serrano peppers and canned, diced jalapeno peppers. For this recipe, I liked the canned jalapeno peppers the best; they had more “bite”.

It is important to use well-stirred baking powder. The active ingredient settles over time to the bottom of the container. I invert the container and stir well before measuring. If you use a scoop from the top of a container that has been sitting on your kitchen shelf for a while; then it is likely your muffins will not rise.

Making the muffins

Muffins are a “quick bread.” They contain baking powder and are baked in a hot oven of 400 degrees. The muffins should be tender and light. Stir as little as possible to avoid over developing the gluten which makes a muffin that does not rise during baking and is dense and hard as a rock.

Sift and stir the flour, corn flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together to distribute the ingredients well. Combine the egg, milk and oil. Then add in the dry ingredients and jalapeno peppers. Here are the dry ingredients added to the egg and milk.

Here is the mixed batter. It should still be lumpy.

Ready to bake.

And the baked muffins.

Serve with Mustard Green and Ham Soup. A little butter and honey also tastes great when spread on the muffins. Enjoy!

References

The difference between corn meal and corn flour. posted on the differencebetween.net The difference between similar objects and terms. Copyright © 2015 differencebetween.net/object/difference-between-corn-meal-and-corn-flour/

Bob’s Red Mill www.bobsredmill.com/ and http://www.bobsredmill.com/