Northern Sensibilities Reign in These Scrumptious Muffins
Classic southern cornbread is not sweet and is very corny. Northern cornbread is considered an abomination by purists, being much sweeter and softer. Most of the cornbread we are all used to, whether we are buying cornbread muffins in bakeries or a square served alongside our chili in a restaurant, is northern style cornbread.
And while there are some things that we are purists about (such as where our fish comes from or our water) this recipe shows off our preference in corn muffins (a little sweet). And most importantly, it’s a butter vehicle! A warm cornbread muffin, with a pat of really good butter melting over it…heaven.
Perfect Partner
These corn muffins are moist and slightly sweet and have just enough crumble to be the perfect foil to a hearty soup, a salad or as a breakfast grab with coffee – and you can enjoy them anytime of day.
For a vegan version, try our Vegan Low FODMAP Cornbread.
Cornbread Muffins
These cornbread muffins are easy to make and work well with a schmear of jam or alongside a bowl of chili.
Low FODMAP Serving Size Info: Makes 12 muffins; serving size 1 muffin
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) lactose-free whole milk, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 3/4 cups (242 g) fine stoneground yellow cornmeal
- 1 cup (145 g) low FODMAP gluten-free all-purpose flour, such as Bob's Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten-Free Baking Flour
- 1/3 cup (66 g) sugar
- 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder, use gluten-free if following a gluten-free diet
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons (57 g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) neutral flavored oil, such as canola or vegetable
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
Preparation:
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Position rack in center of oven. Preheat oven to 400°F/200°C. Coat 12 muffin wells with nonstick spray; set aside.
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Stir the milk and lemon juice together in a medium-sized bowl and allow to sit for 5 minutes to thicken while oven preheats.
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Whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl to aerate and combine. Make a small well in the center and set aside.
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Whisk the melted butter, vegetable oil and eggs into the thickened milk until combined. Pour this wet mixture into the well of the dry mix and whisk together just until combined. Divide evenly into prepared pan.
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Bake for about 14 to 18 minutes or just until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool pan(s) on rack for 2 minutes, then unmold onto rack. Muffins are ready to eat while warm or cool to room temperature and store in airtight containers at room temperature for up to 2 days; they do dry out a bit. Muffins may also be frozen in heavy zip top bags for up to 1 month.
Notes:
Tips
- While we love freshly squeezed lemon juice where its flavor will be pronounced, we often find a need for lemon juice in small amounts and buying fresh lemons just doesn’t make economic or logistical sense. There is one prepared lemon juice product that we will use in the Test Kitchen and that’s Minute Maid Premium 100% Pure Lemon Juice. It comes in an easy to use squeeze bottle that is packaged in a box so look for the box near the frozen juice concentrates. We always keep a couple in the freezer. There were a few years, just a few years ago, when it disappeared from the shelves and devotees went crazy. You can still find the chat threads online; it was like hunting for unicorns! So thankful that it is available again. This is a freezer “pantry” item to try and always have on hand.
- For a less sweet version you can reduce the sugar to 2 to 3 tablespoons.
If You Can Tolerate
- Fructans: If you passed the fructan wheat Challenge, you could sub in unbleached all-purpose flour for the gluten free flour; use the weight amounts if you make this substitution for best results. Note that the cornbread muffins will no longer be gluten free.
Nutrition
All nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more. For a more detailed explanation, please read our article Understanding The Nutrition Panel Within Our Recipes.
I tried these they turned out so good. I did 2 tablespoons of sugar, next time I will add the third.
Fran, Thank you for letting us know! I am partial to a sweeter muffin and the sugar makes them more tender as well. By the way, we have featured our cornbread in a few stuffings, where we call for baking the batter in one pan. You could try that too!
Hi Dédé,
Do you think I can’t use this batter and put it in a 12 inch cast iron pan? I love muffins too but I just use got my cast iron pan and I want to try it out!
Emily
You could certainly try. Let us know how it works out.
Can we use a sweetener like stevia in lieu of the sugar? I never add sugar to anything I eat.
We have not tested this recipe with stevia and stevia does not work the same as sugar in baking. You could try, but I have no idea how it will work. Let us know and we can share the info with others. Just to make sure that you are aware, white sugar is not problem from a FODMAP perspective.
Also, Monash is very particular about their certification and any change to the recipe whatsoever would null and void the low FODMAP certification of the recipe.
I made these today – the less sweet version and they were really delicious. I will freeze some so they don’t go bad. Thank you for this recipe.
Excellent! Thank you for letting us know.
OMG!! These are delicious! I used lime juice instead of lemon. Fabulous! I tried another cornbread recipe that had too much salt for my liking and had to toss it. Tried it again with less salt and managed to eat half over a week. By then, it was too dry and crumbly.
These muffins will be my go to for low FODMAP and gluten free corn muffins from now on.
Now if I could just get a good “real” bread recipe to enjoy a piece of toast again……
Pat, what a lovely note. If I can bring low FODMAP deliciousness into your life (and like-minded FODMAPers) then I have done my job well! Thank you for taking the time to let us know. For “real” bread, have you tried eating slow risen sourdough?
I am wanting to make this for a dinner I am hosting this week, but I an curious of I could substitute the lactose free milk with almond milk?
Hi Brianna. I just want to point out that the recipe also includes butter, so it would not be dairy-free with the almond milk substitution (not sure if that was your desire). The recipe works as written. Also the FODMAP content per serving is based on the recipe as presented here. Whenever you make substitutions you have to consider whether the recipe will actually work and also if the FODMAP load remains the same. In this case you could try the almond milk. The recipe will work, but the quality of flavor and texture will not be the same – in my opinion they will be less moist and tender. In terms of FODMAPs, I would suggest sticking with the serving size as stated.
If you are ok with lactose, could you substitute the milk/lemon mixture with regular buttermilk?
Yes!
These are so light & fluffy! I forgot the oil, & actually, it is not needed! Lovely with a pat of butter.
I start the HONEY challenge tomorrow & thought what goes best with honey but cornbread?!?!!
I also used cupcake liners – helps to keep in moisture. They also took 21 minutes to bake through.
I couldn’t agree more. I LOVE honey with cornbread. I tend to use fluted paper cups with cupcakes and not with muffins, but it is a personal choice, of course. I love that you commented on the baking time. Yours was slightly longer than what we suggested. This was most likely partially due to the insulation that the paper cups provide. It is Exactly this type of nuance that so many people do not understand when it comes to baking. This is a great teaching moment! Good luck with the honey.
Hi! These look yummy. I’d like to make a large batch and freeze some of them and was wondering if they are suitable for freezing? thanks.
Thes can be frozen. I am not a huge fan of frozen baked goods, as there is almost always some lessening of quality, but yes, you can. I would double bag in heavy zip top bags and remove all the air.
Very good. So often my corn bread and muffins are too dry. These were not. I only had 2% lactose-free milk around and that’s what I used. I will make these again.
Oh so great to hear that you loved them! Thank your letting folks know that the 2% worked for you.
These turned out great and I used lactose free 2% milk also. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
Thank you for letting us know your tweak worked. It will help others:)