Myselves and muffins

I have got to get these muffins off my brain. They’re taking up valuable cerebral real estate in the space back there behind my eyeballs. I can’t tell you where exactly, since my eyeballs don’t do complete one-eighties or three-sixties or whatever, but all I know is that ever since I made them, I’ve been saying to myself, “Self, you have got to blog about those muffins.”

And I say back to myself, “Yes, Master Self, you’re right. I do.” And then I go do other incredibly important things like chronicle all the food I’ve never chronicled before and experiment with pancakes (I love pancakes) and scour the toilet.

Until suddenly I get a zinging pain up my back and it’s Master Self again, pulling me up by my boot straps (though I am wearing strapless slippers), trying to get me to walk in the path of righteousness and muffins.

“WRITE ABOUT THOSE MUFFINS!” Master Self bellows. “If you don’t, you might forget about them and then where would we be? Huh? Besides, it’s not fair to keep them all to yourself!”

“Enough already,” I whine, rolling my shoulders in an effort to slacken the taut reins. And then I get a little mouthy. “Have you ever thought that maybe everyone already has their favorite muffin recipe? Or that just maybe, if someone really wanted this particular recipe, they could find it themselves? I—I mean, we—found it, so they could too, right?”

For my backtalk, I’m rewarded with a throbbing headache.

And so it goes—guilt and multiple selves don’t make for an easy life—until Master Self wears down Underling Self, and here I am (though I’m not sure which one of me, exactly), writing about muffins. Or at least I will be writing about muffins once I start writing about them.

I think I might be writing about them now. Yes?

The muffins being written about are Blueberry-Cornmeal Muffins. When I made them, I put blueberries in six of the twelve muffins; the other six I left plain. We loved both kinds, but the blueberry ones got eaten first—that’s how I know we like them best. (I’m good at connecting the dots, see?) It’s also the reason that some of these pictures are of muffins without blueberries—by the time I got around to taking the pictures, the blueberry muffins were well on their way to our tummies.

Cornmeal and blueberries were meant to go together. Did you know that? Together they warm the cockles of your heart. Like blue bathrooms with yellow highlights, so cozy and right.

These muffins are like that. Not like a bathroom, no, but like a yellow and blue bathroom looks, cozy and right. Rightly cozy.

Or something like that.

Blueberry-Cornmeal Muffins
Adapted from The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum

I make my own yellow cornmeal from popcorn. Just toss the kernels in the grain mill and flick the switch. Yo-Yo watched me do it today and calls the resulting meal “popcorn flour.”

You can use all whole wheat flour, if you like. And feel free to use two-thirds cup of either plain yogurt or sour cream—I did half of each because I ran out of sour cream. The yogurt gives the muffins a deliciously tangy flavor.

½ cup cornmeal
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry four
1/4 cup white flour, slightly rounded
2 tablespoons, plus 2 teaspoons, sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 large egg
1/3 cup plain yogurt
1/3 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2/3 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, yogurt, sour cream, and butter. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir briefly. Fold in the blueberries.

Divide the batter into 12 well-greased muffin tins. Bake the muffins at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes.

About one year ago: I must have been on sabbatical or something because I wasn’t saying a peep. So I’ll just fill you in on cornmeal previously. Let’s see, there’s cornmeal whole wheat waffles, sweet onion corn bake, and Happy Pappy-style cornbread. One of those ought to float your boat. And if it doesn’t? Well then sink. See if I care.