I usually like my muffins glossy on the surface but soft and fluffy on the inside — exactly like a Tim Horton’s blueberry muffin, which is what I always get whenever I stop by an ONroute. Any place that tries to make a muffin fancy with things like crumble or turbinado sugar on top, I try to stay away from.
I think that’s why I really love cornbread muffins. It’s not trying to be anything else, and it’s consistently good. There’s something about the slightly coarse texture and subdued sweet corn flavour that I always crave these days. I don’t know if it’s because Thanksgiving just passed, but I’ve been making them almost every other day. I’m kinda obsessed.
Anyway, that’s how I ended up being in my corn era. I feel like that kid who was all over TikTok a few months ago — I also really love corn.
I already knew I wanted to share my corn fritter recipe for this week’s send (recipe below for paid subscribers), but I got bored last night and decided I wanted to try and make corn cookies. Spoiler: it didn’t turn out well.
The first batter I made ended up being really sticky. I know what cookie dough is supposed to look like, and it was not it. I baked one scoop, and it ended up being a formless muffin. Mind you, it was 10:00 pm at this point, but I didn’t want to give up. I then went ahead and added a bit more flour, an egg, and granulated sugar in hopes of saving the mess. I tested another scoop, and it ended up being a scone.
At that point, I said fuck it and added oat milk into the batter to hopefully turn it into a cake. I baked it in an 8-inch cake tin, and, alas, it ended up being a giant half-scone half-cake situation.
This batter has been through a lot, but I wasn’t going to give up on it just yet. Wasting? In this economy? No, ma’am! I considered turning it into another cake, but I had a gut feeling it would probably just end up being a rock or a soggy lump of mess. So, I just ended up turning them into corn fritters.
The recipe below is a fail and foolproof version of corn fritters (to be clear: it’s not the same batter as the one I made last night). I personally love serving these fritters with chimichurri — I think the sweetness balanced by the bright and herby chimichurri works. Insert chef’s kiss emoji here.
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