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Rice Muffins
1 cup rice (cooked) 1 teaspoon melted shortening 2 eggs 1 1/2 cups flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 teaspoons salt 1 cup milk Mix above ingredients in order mentioned, sifting dry ingredients together and drop into well greased muffin pans. Bake in hot oven at 400 degrees F. for 20 minutes. Makes 1 dozen.
A quick bread built to stretch leftover rice into something with eggs and milk behind it. The method is straightforward; two details in the ingredient list deserve attention before you start.
- The salt is out of proportionTwo teaspoons of salt in a dozen muffins is roughly four times what a batter of this size carries. Half a teaspoon suits 1 1/2 cups of flour, and the muffins will otherwise be inedibly salty.
- Cooked riceUse plain boiled long- or medium-grain rice, cooled and fluffed apart. Cold rice straight from the refrigerator clumps; break it up with a fork in the milk before adding it to the dry ingredients so you do not end up with lumps of paste in the crumb.
- MixingDespite the instruction to combine in the order given, treat this as a muffin batter: whisk eggs, milk and melted shortening together, then fold the sifted dry ingredients in with a dozen strokes. Overmixing develops gluten and gives tunnels and a rubbery texture.
- ShorteningOne teaspoon is very little fat, and it leaves the muffins dry by the second day. Melted butter or a neutral oil substitutes directly, and a tablespoon rather than a teaspoon improves keeping without changing the method.
- Oven and pans400F is correct for muffins and needs no adjustment. Twenty minutes suits a standard 12-cup tin; check at 16 minutes, as rice batters brown on the bottom before the tops colour. Paper liners work, though the original greased tin gives a better crust.
- Yield and servingOne dozen standard muffins. Best warm from the oven; they stale quickly given the low fat, so split and toast any that survive the first meal.
Rice breads and rice muffins appear throughout nineteenth-century American cookery, particularly in the Carolina low country, where rice was grown in quantity and leftover boiled rice was a daily fact of the kitchen. Rice, eggs and milk together made a dish that was bland, cheap and often considered gentle on the digestion.