“Let’s talk about cornmeal!”
– Nobody, ever
…Until now! This humble pantry staple gets a lot of action in my kitchen, but so little love in general. A heartier option than your average all-purpose flour, yellow cornmeal has a great number of uses: replace breadcrumbs with cornmeal as a binding agent for meatballs; dredge a fish fillet in cornmeal before pan-frying for a crispier coating; toss it on your pizza stone to add some crunch to your crust. Even better: simmer one cup of it for four minutes in four cups of boiling water and a tablespoon of butter (stirring constantly and using a long spoon to steer clear of the splatter), stir in some grated Parmesan and salt and pepper, and you’ve got a quick and tasty polenta-ish pudding to serve under stews and sauces.
However, cornmeal shines brightest in the baked goods arena, and I’m not just talking about your classic cornbread. It wasn’t until I recently came across a recipe from Bon Appetit for a cherry upside-down cornmeal cake that I realized how great cornmeal would be in a fruit dessert. And since I am way too lazy to pit a bazillion cherries, I thought I would try pairing cornmeal with the lovely Ontario blueberries available right now.
This recipe started off as a cake, adapting a lemon-yogurt cake batter to include cornmeal. However, after some tweaking, I found that it’s much better converted to muffins, which maximizes the batter-to-pan surface contact, giving you more crust per bite. The crunchy, buttery effect of the cornmeal contrasted with the sweet-tart burst of blueberries and a bright hint of lemon zest is a winner, kept moist and dense by the use of yogurt or sour cream in the batter. Other summer fruits would also work well in this recipe: raspberries, blackberries, or chopped up peaches, nectarines or cherries. Alternately, without any fruit, this would make a perfectly good plain cornmeal muffin.
A few tips: no need for any fancy cornmeal — just regular, medium-ground stuff will do. However, grabbing baking powder that’s aluminum-free can help reduce the tendency to oxidize the fruit in the batter, which is what can make your blueberry muffins or pancakes come out all green. Bob’s Red Mill makes a decent version that is available in most of the bigger grocery stores or in health food stores. Additionally, you can prevent the berries from sinking to the bottom of the muffin by coating them lightly in a tablespoon or so of flour before mixing into the batter, which will help suspend the fruit in the batter when you pour it into the tins.
As with cornbread, you can play with the ratio of flour to cornmeal according to taste — I like the proportions here, but if you like a grittier muffin, just increase the cornmeal by up to another 1/4 cup, and reduce the flour by the same amount. These won’t rise up the same as your typical muffins, so you can fill the tins almost to the brim. You can also bake in a 9-inch round cake pan instead (I would increase the time by about 8 minutes if you do this).
Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins
1 cup + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder (aluminum free, if possible)
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain yogurt or sour cream
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs
zest of 1 lemon, grated
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 12-muffin tin pan with butter, and dust lightly with flour.
2. In a small mixing bowl, sift together 1 cup flour with the baking powder and salt, and whisk in the cornmeal.
3. In large mixing bowl, whisk together the yogurt, white and brown sugars, eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined (don’t overmix).
4. Coat the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter.
5. Divide batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the muffins comes out clean and the tops are a light golden brown. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then run a thin knife around the edges and pop out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Store in an airtight container.
Sara Chan is a Toronto-based entertainment lawyer, food enthusiast, unprofessional home chef and even less professional food photographer. Her favourite food group is pork.