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Rice Muffins
2 cupfuls cold boiled rice, 1 pint flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 tablespoonful sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder, 1/2 pint milk, 3 eggs. Dilute rice, made free from lumps, with milk and beaten eggs; sift together flour, sugar, salt, and powder; add to rice preparation, mix into smooth, rather firm batter; muffin-pans to be cold and well greased, then fill two-thirds; bake in hot oven fifteen minutes.
A leftover-rice muffin from the era when cold boiled rice was a standing item in the larder. The batter is stiffer than a modern muffin batter and depends on the eggs rather than much chemical leavening.
- Measures1 pint flour is 2 cups; 1/2 pint milk is 1 cup. Weighed, the flour is roughly 9 oz / 250 g.
- Hot oven"hot" in period usage covers roughly 400-425F (200-220C). Fifteen minutes at that heat suits standard muffin cups; give large cups 18-20 minutes.
- Break up the rice firstThis is the hinge. Mash the cold rice with the milk and beaten eggs until no lumps remain before any flour goes in, or you get dense pockets of grain in the crumb. A few seconds with a stick blender does it.
- Baking powder1 1/2 teaspoons for 2 cups of flour is modest by current practice, which would use 2 teaspoons or more. The lift comes largely from three eggs, so beat them well and bake as soon as the batter is mixed.
- Cold, greased pansThe recipe is explicit that the pans be cold and well greased, though it gives no reason. Grease generously, since rice starch sticks.
- Rice to usePlain long-grain or medium-grain boiled rice, unsalted and unseasoned. Sticky sushi rice or converted rice both behave differently; leftover rice from the fridge, a day old, is ideal.
- YieldAbout 12 to 16 standard muffins, depending on cup size. Best eaten warm the day they are baked; they stale quickly and are better split and toasted the next morning.