New York Corn Muffins | A Tipping Point

How true is it that certain things don’t get old, even in New York City, where change is a constant? Take breakfast pastry, like bagels, croissants and, if you can get them, cronuts. They are my favorite standbys. They don’t get old. From reading Ruth Reichl’s My Kitchen Year, I am taking a look at the New York corn muffins to see how they fare.

“Early NY mornings: conversations with sidewalk strangers. Familiar fog of crowded coffee shop. Toasted corn muffin, crisp, sweet, buttery…” Ruth Reichl

Here is my uniquely New York experience I’d never forget. When cronuts were all the rage and drew huge crowds, I waited in line for over an hour in the early morning. Meanwhile there wasn’t anything interesting to do than carrying on conversations with strangers. All that waiting just to buy two cronuts, which Diminique Ansel fries laminated dough in grapeseed oil, rolls it in sugar, fills it with cream and tops it with a sweet glaze. Cronuts are five years old now and the craze is still alive and well. Only in New York!

New York is my town, where I work and play and, at one point in my life, lived. For some reasons, I’ve never had a New York corn muffin in a coffee shop before. I frequent Starbucks for coffee. Where are the New York corn muffins? But in the old days, there weren’t any Starbucks. At this point, I’d have to make my very own New York corn muffins, using Ruth’s recipe.

This blog is intended for food, not travel. But I can’t wait to put in a few good words for the Big Apple.

New York, New York. Let’s start with the food scene. As you know, Google has been in town for a while and is investing heavily in the Chelsea Market, one of my favorite food destinations. Meanwhile, other tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are also expanding their presence in the city. There is a tech wave — positively. For food lovers, the good news is Market Line is coming to the Lower East Side this summer. It’s promised to be the city’s largest food marketplace and a delicious celebration of the neighborhood immigrant cuisines.

The New York skyline is changing rapidly. The Hudson Yards, the largest development since Rockefeller Center during the Depression, is taking shape. Soon, a new cultural arts center will open in 2019. Anywhere you look, there are huge buildings in scaffoldings. You won’t expect anything less in a city that never sleeps. However, there is more than the usual buzz in the Big Apple, redefining the meaning of “big.”

These New York corn muffins are meant to be big. It’s because office workers want a substantial breakfast to tide them over until the lunch break. This spawned huge corn muffins, jumbo bagels, thick Kaiser Rolls and super-sized coffee from coffee shops, delis and food carts.

For a new generation of tech workers, the experience is quite different. A big New York corn muffin may no longer. Above all, the food scene is fast and furious in the Big Apple. Also, there is a growing trend for smaller, healthier, greener energy drinks and eats coming from corporate kitchens and caterers — and around the clock.

New York is an exciting, noisy, multi-faceted and diverse metropolis of 8+ millions people. Everyone has an opinion on something. It can be annoying at times. But no one takes himself/herself too seriously. Incredibly, we learn to get along and accept the good and the bad that comes with life in a big city. Love it or hate it. New York City is never a boring place!

To make the New York corn muffins, I bake most of the batter in a cast iron pan. As a result, they look bigger and wider and edgier. Ruth says the best way to serve them, as in old New York coffee shops: split horizontally, brushed with butter, and toasted on a griddle or in a pan. The toasted muffins take on a crispy and buttery texture. In addition, the corn kernels, directly from the freezer, give another layer of flavor and texture. Finally, changing the recipe to use 100% corn flour and therefore gluten-free may appeal to the tech crowd than a traditional New York corn muffins.

Print Recipe

New York Corn Muffins

Ingredients

• SHOPPING LIST:
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup corn kernels
• STAPLES:
• 1 cup flour
• 6 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 tablespoons (75g) butter
• 2 eggs

Instructions

1

Mix the flour with the cornmeal. (I prefer stoneground.) Whisk in sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda.

2

Melt the butter. Allow it to cool, then stir in buttermilk along with 1 egg and 1 additional egg yolk. Stir into the dry mixture. Toss in the corn kernels. (You can use frozen corn, and there’s no need to defrost it.) The dough will be lumpy; don’t worry about that.

3

Divide the batter into a well-greased muffin tin and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before turning the muffins out.

4

Best served the way they are in old New York coffee shops: split horizontally, brushed with butter, and toasted on a griddle or in a pan.

Notes

Adapted from My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl