Berkshire Muffins

This month's recipe is from the second newest member of my collection (I recently got a collection of handwritten recipes on EBay), The Boston Cooking-School Cookbook. They are called Berkshire muffins. What they really are is corn bread muffins with rice in them. Its a super easy recipe I hope you enjoy.

Berkshire Muffins

1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cooked rice
2 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt2/3 cup scalded milk (scant)
1 egg1 Tablespoon melted butter
3 teaspoons baking powder

Turn scalded milk on meal, let stand five minutes; add rice, and flour mixed and sifted with remaining dry ingredients. Add yolk of egg well beaten, butter and white of egg beaten stiff and dry.

So easy, so clean cut, I almost know exactly what to do to make this come out right! Yeah-ah! The only thing that is missing is the oven temperature and the number of muffins. One other minor adjustment is with the baking powder.

First an interesting fact or two or three. Baking powder was first made in 1843 by British chemist Alfred Bird for his wife who was allergic to yeast and eggs. In 1855, Eben Norton Hunsford, an American chemist patented calcium phosphate baking powder. In 1873, the Royal Baking Powder Company created a powder with alum and soda which was stronger than its fellow competitors. Finally in 1889, George Campbell Rewe, working for the Calumet Baking Powder Company developed the baking powder most of us recognize today, double acting baking powder that rises in the bowl and in the oven.

Because Miss Farmer requires 3 whopping teaspoons of baking powder, it is easy to assume that she was using single acting baking powder to get her muffins to rise. As a result, I used about half of what was called for in the recipe. I also did not scald the milk, which I assume was for pastuerizing purposes. What you will need for the recipe is as follows.

1/2 cup corn meal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cooked rice
2 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk (scant)
1 egg
1 Tablespoon melted butter1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Mix the corn meal and milk in a bowl and let sit for five minutes to allow the milk to soften the meal up.
2. Mix in flour, rice, sugar, and salt.

3. Separate the egg, and beat the yolk before adding to the mix. Beat the white of the egg until it forms stiff peaks(until it looks like the image below). Add this to the mixture and fold in gently.


4. (I lined the muffin tin because I am a huge fan of easy clean up, but they should be just fine if you choose not to.) Divide the mixture evenly between twelve muffin cups and bake for 15 minutes. Check the muffins with a toothpick to ensure they are done.

Enjoy!