Corn Meal Gems

A plain baking-powder muffin batter with a third of the flour replaced by cornmeal. The method is borrowed from another entry in the same chapter, so the only real work is reconstructing what that method was.

• Gem pans"Gems" were baked in heavy cast-iron gem pans with oval or round cups. The pan was commonly greased and heated before filling, which encourages a crisper shell; in practice period books used "gem" and "muffin" more or less interchangeably, the pan being the real difference. A standard 12-cup muffin tin works, ideally preheated.
• OvenThe heat is not given here; it belongs to the Graham Muffins II entry being cross-referenced. A hot oven, roughly 400-425F for about 18 to 20 minutes, until the tops are domed and dry to the touch, suits a baking-powder batter of this kind, though equivalences between period oven descriptions and modern settings are only approximate.
• MixingThe hinge is restraint. Combine the dry ingredients, beat the egg into the milk, add the melted butter, and stir the wet into the dry only until no dry flour remains. Beaten smooth, gem batter turns tough and tunnelled.
• CornmealPeriod cornmeal was stone-ground and coarser than today's degerminated supermarket meal. Fine or medium yellow cornmeal is closest in behaviour; coarse grits or polenta will stay gritty in so short a bake unless soaked in the milk for fifteen minutes first.
• Baking powderThree teaspoons to one and a half cups of total meal and flour is generous by current standards. Modern double-acting powder at two teaspoons gives an ample rise without the metallic edge.
• YieldAbout 9 to 10 gems, or 8 standard muffin cups. Best eaten within an hour of baking, split and buttered while hot.