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Raised Hominy Muffins
1 cup warm cooked hominy 1/4 cup butter 1 cup scalded milk 3 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 yeast cake 1/4 cup lukewarm water 3 1/4 cups flour Mix first five ingredients; when lukewarm add yeast cake, dissolved in lukewarm water and flour. Cover, and let rise over night. In the morning cut down, fill buttered gem pans two-thirds full, let rise, one hour, and bake in a moderate oven. Unless cooked hominy is rather stiff more flour will be needed.
An overnight yeasted muffin built on leftover cooked hominy, from the era when a small piece of compressed yeast did the work of a whole packet. The batter is stiff enough to spoon rather than pour.
- The hinge: hominy consistencyThe flour quantity is only a starting point. If your cooked hominy or grits is loose, the dough will slack out and the muffins will spread instead of doming; add flour until you have a thick, sticky batter that holds a spoon upright.
- What hominy means hereCooked hulled corn; the word covered both whole or cracked hulled corn and the coarser ground form sold today as hominy grits, cooked to a stiff porridge and still warm. Canned whole hominy, drained and mashed, also works; it is wetter, so expect to need the extra flour the recipe warns about.
- Yeast cakeCompressed cakes varied in size, but a quarter of one is on the order of half a teaspoon of instant or active dry yeast. The small amount suits a long overnight rise; much more and the dough is likely to be overproofed by morning.
- Scalded milkScalding is usually explained as denaturing something in milk that weakens dough; with pasteurized milk you can simply warm it. Either way, let the mixture cool to lukewarm before the yeast goes in, as the recipe insists.
- Overnight riseAn unheated kitchen of the period ran cool. In a modern room around 70F the dough may be well up in six to eight hours; refrigerate it after a couple of hours at room temperature if you want a full twelve.
- "Cut down"Deflate the risen dough with a spoon or by folding it over on itself a few times, then fill the pans. No kneading is wanted.
- Gem pansCast-iron gem pans; a standard 12-cup muffin tin, well buttered, stands in. Fill two-thirds full; the recipe's hour for the second rise may run shorter in a warm kitchen.
- OvenTake a moderate oven as roughly 350 to 375F. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are set and browned and a skewer comes out clean.
- YieldAbout twelve muffins. They are best warm, the day they are baked.