Toasted Walnut Corn Muffins

Yesterday was spent shaking, shivering and skiing in Pennsylvania, so Sunday was destined to be an indoor, snuggly day.   The ski day began at 5:45 a.m. so we could be the first on the slopes.  I’m a skier and Pete is a boarder/caretaker and we both wore ourselves out going up and down the mountain all day.  While a lot of his time and attention went to the mountain, quite a large portion of the day was spent taking care of me.  Poor guy had to tuck in a pig-tail here, stuff in a ski-lift tag there, pull up a neck warmer here and he may or may not have had to wipe a nose or two.  To repay his kind efforts that far surpassed any normal boyfriendly duty, I knew he deserved something extra special.  

These muffins are delicious right out of the oven with a little butter, maybe even some jam.  The ingredients are simple and lack ingredients called for in other corn muffin recipes (namely sour cream or buttermilk) that couldn’t be found in my refrigerator.   I only wanted a small batch of them so I played around with measurements and made it for 6 muffins, which worked out delightfully.

 

Toasted Walnut Corn Muffins

(yields 6 perfect muffins- but it’s easily doubled)

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup cornmeal

¾ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 egg

3/8 (the point halfway between ¼ and ½ in your measuring cup) light brown sugar

6 tablespoons melted butter

½ cup milk (I used soy milk)

¾ cup roughly chopped, toasted walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and spay a standard muffin tin with a non-stick baking spray.

Fork (or whisk) together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  In another      bowl, fork (or whisk) your egg until nicely combined.  Add in the light brown sugar and fork together until smooth.

Melt the butter and add to the egg and sugar mixture.  Fork (or whisk) in your milk and mix   until well-combined.

Pour your wet ingredients into the dry and gently mix with a spatula until it is just combined.     Be careful to not over-mix.

Gently fold in the toasted walnuts.

Evenly distribute the batter to the cups in the muffin tin.  I used a ¼ cup spoon to scoop the   mixture to the tin neatly.

Bake until all the muffins are light golden brown, about 15 minutes.