Friday, November 27, 2009

Cornmeal Muffins with Cranberry Butter


This recipe is Ina's. So I knew it would be perfect! To give it a festive Holiday flair I served these delicious muffins with my Cranberry Butter. D-lish!

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup medium cornmeal
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
  • 2 extra-large eggs

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, melted butter, and eggs. With the mixer on the lowest speed, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until they are just blended. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Bake for 30 minutes, until the tops are crisp and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly and remove from the pan.




The Cranberry Butter was out of this world good! In fact it was so good that I packaged up a small jar to bring with us to my aunt and uncle's to serve with the not overly sweet orange cranberry bread where it was received with much appreciation!


Cranberry Butter

You might be wondering where I came up with this idea... how strange to mix fruit and butter... but not really! Years and years ago (Ok, centuries ago!) I had my first job at Williams-Sonoma. I loved it there. We were heavily promoting the bread machine at the time and there was always something baking in the store. It smelled heavenly! Whenever we baked simple breads we always had something to serve on them. We concocted all these crazy and delicious spreads. We would combine jam and honey and butter to create the most magnificent Fruit Butters! I can still taste them on the warm, just baked breads... Ahhh... So anyhow, that was the influence behind this creation. I think you will like it a lot!

Directions:

1 stick of butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
1 1/4 (give or take what you have leftover) of home made cranberry sauce or relish (or whole berried canned cranberry sauce)
2 Tbs of honey

In a small food processor (I use my Cuisinart mini chop) place all your ingredients in food processor and pulse until the result resembles raspberry jam. The butter will be blended but you will see white "flecks." This is good!

This was delicious on the cranberry bread as well as the corn muffins... I can't wait to have some more in a bit!

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