Amazing Corn Muffins and Honey Butter

I was in the mood for corn muffins.  Not cornbread, not corn casserole, not corn pudding.  Corn muffins.  The type you can eat for breakfast, with or without butter.  The type of corn muffins I like, not too big (a ginormous muffin from BJ's can last me four days) and (all my southern friends avert your eyes) on the sweet side.  Damn yankees.

I make a pretty good sour cream cornbread which goes really well with my chili or any Tex-Mex theme buffet (oh yeah, my burritos and enchiladas and even a rogue chimichanga) but doesn't work as a breakfast corn muffin.  I really wanted a corn muffin that would go nicely with my morning coffee, and that would travel well to the office - meaning it had to bake well in paper liners.  So I started my online research, and found that such a corn muffin really exists, and I had all the tools needed to create them.

There are certain things I keep in the pantry.

Besides an excess of canned goods, I mean.  I have 3 pantry closets plus a spice cabinet, so technically I have an excess of everything.

See the Jiffy mixes?  I always have a few of the corn muffin and a few of the yellow cake mix.  The corn muffin mixes are used in my favorite corn casserole, and the cake mix is there in case I have an urge to throw together my favorite coffee cake.

Today I was able to use one box of each to create what my son has christened "amazing" corn muffins.  Robert scarfed down most of two muffins and told me they smelled "amazing".  And having tasted and smelled them, I happily concur.

And the paper liner pulls away perfectly!

Amazing Corn Muffins

1 box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
1 box Jiffy Golden Yellow Cake Mix
2 extra large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup half-and-half

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a paper towel with some non-stick spray and wipe the top of a 12 cup muffin tin.  Place a paper liner in each of the cups.

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl, and with a wooden spoon, stir well just to combine.  There are going to be lumps in the batter, which is normal when making muffins.  Scoop the batter into the cups.  They will be filled almost to the top.  Carefully slide into the preheated oven, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.  Let cool in the muffin tin for about five minutes, then remove the muffins and let them to finish cooling on a rack.  Be careful when separating the top of the muffin from the top of the tin; you might want to use the tip of a sharp little knife to slide between.  I used my very long fingernails, but that's just me.

You are going to love these.  You can eat them right out of the oven or cooled to room temperature.  Next time I am going to try them with butter.  Or honey.  Or honey butter.

Honey Butter

1 stick of butter, softened
1 tablespoon flavorful honey

With a whisk, whip the butter together with the honey.  Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.

The honey butter is also perfect with Bubba's Beer Biscuits.  Yes, that's another blog post.