Corn Meal Muffins

This is a griddle batter rather than a modern cup-shaped muffin: two cups of liquid to one cup of meal gives something closer to pancake batter, cooked inside metal rings on a hot griddle. The instructions are garbled in the original, so read the sequence before you start.

• The hinge: it is a thin batterOne cup of meal will not thicken two cups of milk into a spoonable dough. Expect a pourable batter that spreads to the edge of the ring; if you want a stiffer muffin, the meal has to go up, not the milk down.
• Sour milk and sodaSour milk here most likely means milk left to clabber, though period books use the term loosely. Cultured buttermilk is the usual modern substitute, and its acidity is what the soda is there to neutralise. A teaspoon of soda to two cups of sour milk is about the conventional proportion of the period.
• The mixing order is corrupt"Add milk and soda, then milk" repeats itself. What is meant: beat the yolks, stir in the milk with the soda dissolved in it, add the dry ingredients and melted butter, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites last.
• "A scant spoon salt"Ambiguous in the original, since no size is given. A scant teaspoon suits this quantity of batter; a scant tablespoon would be inedible.
• The butterMelt it and let it cool slightly before it goes in, or it will seize into flecks against the cold milk and never distribute.
• MealPeriod cornmeal was stone-ground and coarser than most supermarket meal today. Fine yellow or white cornmeal works; a stone-ground medium grind gives a texture nearer the original, and the batter benefits from ten minutes' rest to let it hydrate.
• Muffin rings and griddleSet greased rings on a griddle at medium, around 375F, pour in batter to about half the ring depth, cook until the surface sets and bubbles, then lift the ring and turn. Without rings, treat them as small thick pancakes. The recipe gives no oven method, so any baking temperature or time would be a modern guess.
• YieldAbout twelve small cakes. Best eaten hot.