Macheesmo

Blue corn is all the rage these days. You can find blue corn tortilla chips and blue corn tortillas in stores and restaurants pretty readily.

When I was stumbling through the grocery store recently (something I do pretty much every day), I saw a whole bag of blue cornmeal! I’m sure that this has been available for a while, but this was one of the first times I’ve seen it.

So I grabbed a bag and figured that I would work out something with it later.

Fast forward two weeks and I’m starving. I open up my pantry and there’s that darn blue cornmeal staring me down.

So I made some really good muffins!

Blue Corn Muffins

by Nick

Serves:

12 muffins

Prep Time:

10 mins

Total Time:

30 mins

Print Recipe

Rate This Recipe

Just a moment please...

Helpful Equipment:

Did you make this?

Snap a photo and tag @macheesmo so I can see your work.

Blue cornmeal in muffin form! These go beyond the blue cornmeal though with cheddar cheese and spicy peppers laced through them.

Adapted from a Bobby Flay Recipe

Ingredients

1/3 Cup sugar

3/4 Cup unsalted butter

4 large eggs

1/2 Cup milk

1-2 Serrano peppers, minced

3 ounces cream cheese

1 Cup cheddar cheese, grated

1 Cup blue cornmeal

1 Cup flour

2 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder

1 Teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons poppy seeds (opt.)

Instructions

1) Cream together the butter and sugar.  Dice the peppers and grate your cheese.

2) Add the eggs one at a time to the butter/sugar mixture.  Then add the milk, cheeses, and peppers.

3) In a separate bowl, stir together the dry ingredients.

4) Add dry ingredients 1/3 at a time.  Mix together until batter is mixed but try not to over-mix it.

5) Grease or butter muffin tins and spoon batter evenly into tins.  You can almost fill up each muffin cup.

6) Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes.  Check to make sure muffins are cooked through.

7) Let cool for a minute or two and then remove muffins from tin.  Serve hot or warm.

Making the Batter

This is a pretty standard corn muffin recipe plus some delicious things.

I wasn’t really sure that blue cornmeal has a different flavor than normal cornmeal, but after making these muffins I do think it’s a bit more flavorful somehow. You could definitely sub regular cornmeal for this recipe though if you wanted to.

One cool part about this recipe is that it starts similarly to a cake batter.

You start by creaming together your butter and sugar. You can use either a hand mixer or a stand mixer for this job. Either will work fine.

Just mix together the butter and sugar until it’s light and creamy.

There are some really flavorful things going into these muffins that make them really surprising.

For starters, chili peppers! You could use one or two Serrano peppers (or jalapeno peppers) depending on how much heat you want. I left the seeds in and everything and just diced them pretty finely.

Cheese is a natural addition to muffins like this also.

Cheddar gives some awesome flavor and cream cheese makes the muffins really rich and delicious.

Adding both is a solid plan!

After you’ve creamed together the butter and sugar, mix in the eggs one at a time and then mix in the milk, peppers, and cheeses until the batter is relatively smooth (there might be a few chunks which is fine).

In a separate bowl, stir together your dry ingredients (flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt). While the muffins will end up just subtly blue, the cornmeal itself is this beautiful blue (almost purple) color.

Add the dry ingredients to your batter 1/3 at a time and mix it until it’s well-combined. Try not to over-mix it though.

Anytime I see a batter like this, I can’t help but try a taste of it before cooking it.

This batter was really good on its own!

Baking the Muffins

The most important step for these muffins is to make sure you grease your muffin tin really well before adding the batter. If you don’t, you’ll be prying the muffins out with a crowbar.

I used butter and just rubbed it all over my muffin tin. Then just portion out your batter into each muffin cup.

In hindsight, I could’ve filled my tins up even more than I did.

Bake these guys at 375 for about 20 minutes. Check them at that point and see if they are lightly browning around the edges. If so, they are probably done.

Once the muffins cool for a minute or two, you should be able to pop out each muffin. I think it helps to run a butter knife around the edges of each muffin and then they should just pop right out.

These muffins were really flavorful and had an amazing texture. I love the speckled blue color with them also.

These are perfect with some butter on them and would be a great side for any kind of Tex-Mex brunch or breakfast.

Maybe serve them with some delicious migas?

Has anyone else tried blue cornmeal? What do you think?