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Berkshire Muffins
1/2 cup corn meal 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup cooked rice 2 tablespoons sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup scalded milk (scent) 1 egg 1 tablespoon melted butter 3 teaspoons baking powder Turn scalded milk on meal, let stand five minutes; add rice, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining dry ingredients. Add yolk of egg well beaten, butter, and white of egg beaten stiff and dry.
A rice-and-cornmeal muffin of the sort that turned up leftover rice into breakfast bread. The printed method stops after the batter is mixed, so baking is left to the cook.
- Baking is not statedFill greased muffin tins two-thirds full and bake at 400-425F for 20-25 minutes, until risen and browned. No oven direction is given in the printed method.
- YieldThe quantities make roughly 8 to 10 standard muffins, fewer in larger tins.
- Scalded milkBring the milk just to the point where bubbles form at the edge, then pour it over the cornmeal. The heat softens the meal so the finished crumb is not gritty; five minutes standing is the minimum, and ten does no harm.
- The ricePlain cooked white rice, cooled and separated with a fork. Sticky or seasoned rice will make the batter heavy. Half a cup means half a cup of cooked grain, not raw.
- Corn mealUse a fine or medium yellow or white meal. Coarse stone-ground meal will still be crunchy after only five minutes of soaking; give it fifteen if that is what you have.
- Beating the white separatelyThe stiffly beaten white is folded in last, after the baking powder batter is otherwise complete. Fold gently and get the tins into the oven promptly, since the baking powder is already working.
- "Beaten stiff and dry"Period language for whipping the white past soft peak to the point where it looks matte rather than glossy. Modern practice stops a little short of this, at firm peaks, which folds in more easily and leaves no dry flecks.
- Baking powderThree teaspoons to one cup of combined meal and flour is a heavy hand by current standards, and probably reflects the single-acting powders then on sale. Two teaspoons of modern double-acting powder should give comparable lift with less risk of an off taste.