Baking is relatively new for me.
Well. To be honest, cooking in general just bridged beyond pasta-plus-some-other-stuff-plus-cheese-equals-dinner in recent years. Since moving to Dorchester and developing an addiction to Top Chef last year, I have begun to actually experiment in the kitchen with my meals.
...Except, of course, dessert.
How can one experiment when if you add an extra teaspoon of anything you can seriously fuck your whole cookie or cupcake experience? So, because of that, I have tended to stick to recipes when it comes to making sweets.
The other night, however, I had a pomegranate and a plan.
I posted this question on Facebook and got input from three Facebook buddies - an old friend, a college friend, and a new friend, all of whom had a bit of guidance for me.
As an aside, I would just like to say that this is yet another reason why I love the social network that runs all of our cyber-lives. How else could my BFF from like ninth grade assist me with a baking endeavor? You can talk all the Facebook-smack that you want, but I really enjoy being able to connect with friends, past and present, with the swipe of a tablet screen.
In the end, I stuck with my original inclination: throwing some fresh pomegranate seeds into a sweet corn muffin batter, and voila-- a delicious twist on a classic.
Sweet Corn Muffins With Pomegranate Seeds
What It's Made Of:
- 2/3 cup pomegranate seeds (1-2 decent-sized pomegranates)
- 1.5 cups flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup cornmeal
- 1 Tbs baking powder
- Dash salt
- 1.25 cups milk
- 2 eggs, beaten lightly
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 3 Tbs butter, melted
How It's Made:
First, crack the poms open and remove the seeds from the membrane. I usually do this in water; the seeds sink to the bottom and the other stuff can be skimmed off the top. Carefully pick over the seeds to make sure the membrane is gone and they are bright red and crunchy. The pink-ish, squishy ones are bad and will be pretty gross in the muffins.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners
- Combine the flour, sugar, corn meal, baking powder and salt in a large bowl
- Separately, combine milk, eggs, oil and butter and mix well
- Add pomegranate seeds and dry mixture to wet ingredients and stir until just blended
- Pour into muffin tin. Bake for 18-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean
- Serve warm with butter
...And I survive to bake another day!
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