Pop! Goes the Corn Muffin

A quick blast of heat gives these sweet treats craggy peaks.

Today my daughter’s kindergarten class is celebrating Thanksgiving with the requisite pilgrim/native American feast. 

Being the dutiful and somewhat over-enthusiastic mom that I am, I got up early this morning to bake off a couple of batches of corn mini muffins as our contribution.  (There’s nothing like a quick bread – which must be mixed and baked off in one fell swoop – to make you appreciate the more leisurely processes of yeast breads.  At least the latter lets you sleep.)

Corn bread is simple, with a straightforward mix and bake.  Still, being a fledgling baker, I have yet to have a baking experience that hasn’t taught me a lesson.  

The first batch of corn muffins baked
on the 350 degree stone

This morning, it was the lesson of the super hot baking stone.

For my first batch of mini muffins, I’d only just preheated the oven to 350 degrees before throwing the first pan into the oven.  Since I store the stone in the oven, I’d forgotten it was even IN there before I opened the door to put the muffins inside.

The first batch of muffins baked up fine, nothing wrong with them, but certainly nothing special either.   Maybe they were a little anemic in color and loft.  I didn’t think too much of it, but as I scooped out the batter for the second batch, something I’ve read came back to me.

The second batch of muffins, baked
on a 500 degree stone

I paused my scooping to crank up the oven as hot as it would go (500 degrees on mine) to get my baking stone super hot.  In all of my studying, this seemed to be key.  Get the stone super heated, then as soon as your bread goes into the oven, back the heat down to the prescribed baking temperature – in this case, 350 degrees for the muffins.

Wow - don’t you just love when an experiment pays off?

What a difference.  The quick blast of heat that the muffins received when the baking tin hit the hot stone was enough to pop them up sky high.  You can see in the pictures that they are practically climbing over themselves to reach out of the tin, cracking on the way up.  Not only were they proud and majestic, but the bottoms emerged from the tin beautifully toasted. 

Of course, the reward for early baking is starting the day with a fresh goodie.  I brewed a cuppa English Breakfast, slathered some tart strawberry jam onto a hot corn muffin, and sat down to wait for my little pilgrim to wake.