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Corn Muffins
One quart sifted Indian meal, a heaping tea-spoon butter, one quart milk, a salt-spoon salt, a third cup yeast, a table-spoon of molasses; let it rise four or five hours, and bake in muffin-rings.- Mrs. G. W. Marchant, Buffalo, N. Y.
A yeast-raised cornmeal batter from the era when muffins were as often baked in rings on a griddle as in a tin. The original assumes a cook who knows her own oven and her own yeast, so both need filling in.
- Indian mealNineteenth-century American shorthand for cornmeal, usually stone-ground yellow or white. A quart of it weighs roughly 1 lb 2 oz to 1 lb 4 oz depending on grind.
- The yeastA third of a cup points to a homemade liquid yeast or brewer's barm rather than a modern dry packet. About one packet (2 1/4 tsp) of active dry yeast will do comparable work, and the four- to five-hour rise reflects a slower leaven than modern dry yeast.
- Salt-spoonA standard small spoon of about a quarter teaspoon. A single table-spoon of molasses in this quantity of batter would contribute colour and a little food for the yeast rather than noticeable sweetness.
- ConsistencyEqual volumes of meal and milk give a pourable batter, closer to pancake batter than a stiff dough. It will bubble and slacken further as it ferments rather than doubling in the way a wheat dough does.
- All corn, no wheatWith no wheat flour there is no gluten, so the rise comes mostly from gas trapped in a thick slurry. Expect a tender crumb, possibly faintly sour, and it may slump a little on cooling.
- Muffin ringsMetal rings set on a greased griddle or in a shallow pan, filled about two-thirds. A standard muffin tin works, well greased and preheated; cast iron will give a firmer crust.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given; the recipe says only to bake in muffin-rings. A modern equivalent is about 425F, dropping to 400F if the tops colour before the centres set; allow 20 to 25 minutes.
- YieldA quart of meal with a quart of milk makes a large batch about 18 to 24 standard muffins. Halve it for a household of two or three.
Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping (1877) collected recipes over the signatures of women across Ohio and neighbouring states, and this one carries Mrs. G. W. Marchant of Buffalo with it the compilers reached well past the Buckeye State for contributors. The recipe belongs to the older tradition of yeast-raised corn breads, which predates the general adoption of chemical leavens; the book uses saleratus and baking powder freely elsewhere, but here an overnight or half-day sponge does the work. The long ferment does more than raise the meal, it softens the coarse grind and develops a faint sourness not usually found in quick-leavened cornbread. Muffin rings themselves date from a time when much griddle and hearth cookery survived alongside the cook stove, and recipes of this period often leave the choice of ring or tin, hearth or oven, to whatever the reader happened to own.