13 January 2009

Tuesday's with Dorie: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins

Neither of us liked this muffin.
It looked good but when I pulled it out of the oven it was crumbling. A few hours later it had moistened up and held together but I still found it very dry and I actively disliked the taste. Since I am a savory lover and a cornbread lover, I'm not certain what combination of the ingredients I disliked so much (and I ate half a muffin- the husband spat his out- the whole batch went into bio recycling).

Was it the buttermilk? Probably not. We like buttermilk pancakes.

I think the cilantro and the chili powder just melded extremely poorly with the cornmeal for us. (I sort of resent it, too, as I hand carry that corn meal here- can anyone tell me the German equivalent of stone-ground corn meal? Because it isn't Mais Mehl or Mais Gries.)

Everyone else seems to have loved this recipe (although Cynthia suggests it might be because my cornmeal was stone-ground and that I should have used regular- which might actually be Mais Mehl), while I am regretting not trying the Corniest Corn Muffins on page 4 instead. It was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake. Head on over to her blog and others on the blogroll to see Corn Muffins that actually taste good.

6 comments:

Lillian said...

My husband didn't like them -- very unusual for him not to like something! -- but my sons loved them. You never know. I'm sorry you had to waste your precious imported cornmeal.

Leslie said...

Sorry this didn't work out for you! I wasn't happy with mine either, but I think I messed around with the recipe too much.

christina said...

Hmmm. I'm trying to think here. Yeah, Maismehl is sort of like cornstarch and is actually so finely ground that I don't think it would be good for muffins. Corn meal is sometimes labelled as Polenta and I've seen different grinds from coarse to fairly fine but still with some texture. I've successfully made cornmeal muffins/cornbread in Germany using the stuff from our local Edeka. It was in the organic section and says "Bio-Maisgrieß - Polenta" on it. The brand is Bio-Wertkost. No idea if it's stone ground or not but it works fine.

Rebecca of "Ezra Pound Cake" said...

Oh, that sucks! Hopefully the next recipe will work out better for you.

Cooking for Comfort by Jennifer said...

Sorry this didn't work out! We all have ones that are hits and misses....see you next week.:)

Unknown said...

Hi! I helped my cake to rise by adding meringue powder to the four, 2 tbsp usually adds the trick. I also used room temperature eggs and made sure to fold the eggs only enough to mix in and not worry about the flour spots. This is how I made my Berry Surprise Cake. Hope this helps.