The Question: Is it possible to make muffins with no butter that actually taste good?
I was feeling the urge to bake, had strawberries to use up, and no butter in the house. I also wanted to make something to bring in to work. And, I was feeling corny (nothing new there). I have fantastic recipes for strawberry cornmeal cake and corn muffins, but those and just about every corn pone recipe I came upon called for butter. For good reason, too: butter makes baked goods taste so much better and lighter than oil. But hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Although I use allrecipes.com with some frequency, one has to admit that many of the baked-good recipes in that repository are tailored for busy people who don’t mind cutting a few corners - be it with cake mixes, gelatine, Miracle Whip…you get the idea. I suspected that someone would have figured out how to make a decent, not-too-leaden muffin with oil…and I was right! However, I am quite sure that the muffins made as-is would have been a bit bland. The use of oil, which dutifully adds fat and moisture, does not have much of a yum factor. This was an easy fix,though, with a jaunty trio of vanilla, lemon peel, and of course the chopped strawberries.
I topped them with a little sanding sugar before baking. In retrospect, it might have been just a touch too sweet.
Strawberry Cornmeal Mini-Muffins
Ingredients
1 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup oil (I used olive, but feel free to use safflower, canola, etc)
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
finely grated zest from 1 large lemon
1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Grease mini-muffin tin or line with paper cups.
In a large bowl, mix dry ingredients: corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest.
In a smaller bowl, mix wet ingredients: egg, oil, milk, and vanilla. Gently stir wetr
Spoon batter into prepared mini-muffin cups (an ice cream scoop makes quick work of this).
Bake at 400 degrees for 13-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
Makes about 24 mini-muffins. For regular muffins, bake at 400F for 18-20 minutes
So, if the question is, it is possible to make tasty, non-greasy muffins with oil?
The answer is yes, but to make up for the loss of buttery bliss, add strong flavors like citrus rind, extracts and the like.