Last weekend, I "dog-sat" for my friend E and her partner. They are the proud parents of "the girls" - Cooper and Porter - and I had lots of fun with them. Cooper and Porter are the cutest, tinest dogs ever:
One of their favourite places to sleep was on my knee - both at once - which was not conducive to doing much other than snoozing along with them. Needless to say, it was a relaxing weekend.
While I was housesitting, I baked E and her partner some sugar cookies using the September Daring Bakers challenge recipe, and cut them out using some cute new cookie cutters I bought on the weekend:
What does all of this have to do with Tuesday with Dorie? Not much, other than it is around 10pm on Monday night and my TWD recipe for this week has just finished baking, as I wasn't here on the weekend to make it. The recipe this week is Corniest Corn Muffins, chosen by Jill of My Next Life. This is another recipe which I would never have chosen myself, but which I love and will make again.
The hardest part of this challenge was buying cornmeal in Melbourne. I could have bought it by mail from USA Foods (as Moorabbin is way outside of my neighbourhood) - but the postage would have been more than the cornmeal. In every shop I asked at (including Queen Vic Market), I got asked, "You mean polenta?" No, I do not mean polenta. In one shop, the girl got very huffy because she thought I wanted (wheaten) cornflour, and she gave me the impression that her specialist shop would not stoop to selling anything so common. Eventually, I found cornmeal in a health food shop in Ormond, sold as "maize flour". And the funniest part is that my cornmeal came from the Darling Downs in Queensland - my home turf!
These muffins really tasted good - the corn kernels give moisture, texture and a soft crunch to these muffins. They also smell great while they are baking.
I thought these muffins were perfect straight out of the oven with just a dab of Nuttelex:
Thanks to our host for this week, Jill - she will have the recipe. To check out what everyone else thought of these muffins, visit the LYL section for this week at the TWD website.
Finally, I wish to give a belated "thank you" to Yummy Chunklet, a fellow attorney from Chicago, who awarded me the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award:
I pass this award on to all of you (girls and guys!) who read my blog - I really appreciate that you take the time to drop on by.
26 comments:
I both baked and tried corn bread for the first time last Autumn; I am sure these are equally delicious!
Your friends' puppies are so cute! Thanks for sharing!!
Congrats again on the award! I like your muffins. I find it interesting how several trips to different shops can still fail to produce the one ingredient you're looking for. I'm having that problem right now with mission figs. Great post!
Your friends puppies are really cute, and I love corn muffins!! gloria
This title cracked me up. And you're so sweet to bake puppy cookies!
Oh! The puppies are so cute...and the corn muffins look great...perfect! Hope you have a great week ahead :-)
Sorry to hear that you've had trouble getting cornmeal. I thought I had seen it at the supermarket. And those puppies are so tiny! :)
Congrats on the award! Corn muffins! I like.
Cornmeal is really really easy to find here (it is Kansas, after all), but I can't find a single place in my town that sells black treacle. Sometimes it takes more time to source an ingredient than to do the actual baking!
I LOVE cornbread--I need to try it with actual corn kernels in it!
Yum! I love a good corn muffin.
I don't use corn meal as often as I should. I love corn bread, so next time I go to the SM I must remember to buy some and try your corn muffins. The doggies are so cute.
I'd opt for dogsitting over babysitting any day! Muffins look lovely - how can anything so gloriously golden be bad?
True confession time - I've never baked with corn! Don't know why, as so many recipes, like the one you showcase here, look fab. I'll take your post as further encouragement!
cute bikkies - I confess I am lazy and often just use polenta instead of cornmeal - occasionally is a problem but usually I get away with it - impressed by your dedication to getting the right ingredients
I find it so amazing that you struggle to find things there that are so very common here in the States.
They look wonderful.
Have a happy Tuesday!
Oh man, I hate those shopping expeditions, when you start to think you will never find something and continue to be met with confused stares (or worse, people acting like you're a big weirdo for trying to find something that they think doesn't even exist).
Still, your hard work paid off, well done! Love the yellow :)
Mmm, your muffins look extra corny so your efforts to find cornmeal definitely paid off!
So glad you enjoyed these - especially after your hunt for cornmeal!
The dogs look like they would be fun to play with, but then I love dogs. I forget sometimes that not all ingredients are available everywhere. You were very persistent, and your muffins show it.
Your cookies are so cute. I can almost taste the butter melting on your delicious muffins.
Delicious! I love corn muffins :)
Congrats on the award! Love how you titled your recipe. The corn muffins do look so cute :-]
Nice award. Your muffins look really good...we loved these, both with and without the corn kernels! Those doggies are so little and so cute!
What cute dogs! I didn't try these muffins, but they look great. Too bad it's so hard to find cornmeal - it's so common in the US.
Glad you finally managed to find cornmeal! It's easy enough to find here, but I just didn't love these. Your muffins look great, but those cookies are adorable.
:)
I love the doggy cookies! SOOO cute!
Your muffins look delicious!
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