Last night, our daughter's school held a lantern walk. To the uninitiated, that means dozens of two, three, and four-year-olds singing and walking with lit candles in an otherwise dark and chilly community garden in the East Village. Believe me; it's beautiful, and no one gets hurt.
To take the edge off the rather extreme conditions, each family was asked to bring a dozen muffins. Muffins at 6 pm? Not exactly part of our preschooler's usual evening routine, so for my dozen, I reached for some savory ingredients.
I choose a cornbread base, and amped it up with buttermilk and sharp Dubliner cheddar cheese. The leeks added a pungent kick amidst all the soft, pillowy muffin goodness. With a touch of honey for sweetness, balanced with a few healthy pinches of salt, the kids went for it, and I didn't feel like I was spoiling anyone's supper.
Leftovers? We had them with dinner, served as a side mop to our juicy braised pork, satisfying preschoolers and adults alike.
Cheddar and Leek Muffins
Makes 12 muffins
1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup corn flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
7 tablespoons melted unsalted butter, divided
2 tablespoons honey
1 1/4 cups thinly sliced leeks, white and light green parts only, divided
1 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
Preheat the oven to 375° F. Grease or line a 12-cup muffin tin with baking papers or 5-inch squares of parchment.
Sift all the dry ingredients together into a large mixing bowl.
In a small bowl, beat the eggs, buttermilk, 5 tablespoons of the melted butter, and honey.
Make a well in the dry ingredients and incorporate the wet ingredients. Stir until smooth. Stir in the cheese and 1 cup leeks.
Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups, filling each about three quarters full. Top each muffin with a few of the remaining leek rings and a spoonful of the remaining melted butter.
Bake 20-25 minutes, or until tops just begin to brown.
More Muffin Recipes from The Kitchn
• Quick and Homey Oatmeal Raisin Muffins
• Hearty & Healthy Apple Muffins
• Zucchini Muffins from Simply Recipes
• Weight-Watchers Glazed Pear Muffins
• Mini Blueberry Lemon Muffins
• Double Chocolate Butterscotch Breakfast Muffins
(Images: Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan)
Kart Serving Tray b...

Comments (28)
How do leeks taste? I've never had them, but I always imagine them like celery (bland).
@ HeyNow Tex, leeks are amazing! Definitely not bland. They have a mild onion flavor with lots of sweetness.
Love how they're wrapped -- is that parchment paper, and how is it done -- before baking?
Meaning: just want to verify, you bake the muffins IN the parchment, correct?
That looks amazing! I wonder if they could be made with whole grains? As long as the corn flour isn't degerminated, it's a whole grain, and I bet the all-purpose could be replaced with whole wheat pastry flour. I might try it!
The brown "muffin holders" are cute. Is it a special paper?
These look amazing! I love anything with leeks. Would love for you to share a recipe for "juicy braised pork," too ;o)
These sound FABULOUS...BUT can I substitute whole wheat flour for the all purpose flour? Or would that make them just too dense? Thanks!
There's actually a link in the recipe to directions for the parchment square liners; here it is again:
Quick Tip: Use Parchment Paper as Muffin Cup Liners
is corn flour the same as corn meal?
This recipe sounds amazing, but more importantly, we're going to our preschooler's lantern walk tonight in Minneapolis. I've never heard of a lantern walk until this year. Lantern walks everywhere!
I just read that corn flour is finely ground corn meal and resembles a silky flour - and is the same as masa harina. So is that what you used or did you use corn meal? A little confused about what to look for at the store. Thanks!
Sounds lovely and delicious. I'd love to see the braised pork recipe!
I've never made a corn muffin w/corn flour or masa harina--always corn meal, which is coarser. I think if you substitute the flour one-to-one you'll get a VERY heavy muffin. Don't use polenta either--it's usually coarser than the meal and I doubt it would give a great muffin result either. I'll bet someone will refute this statement shortly, but me, I go for the bag labeled "Corn Meal."
It looks so good!! Hmmmm
We have a light parade here next week :)
Yes, like acushla, karelise and cmcinnys, I'm wondering about your use of "corn flour" - which a fine, white silky powder that I've always used to thicken gravies. I assume what you actually mean is corn meal, aka fine polenta?
Was the lantern walk for St. Martin's Day? In many German-speaking areas of the world (I can't vouch for other parts of Europe), this is the time to celebrate the festival of St. Martin (called Martini in some places) with lanterns and often with mulled wine, special cookies, a special meal focused on a goose (the Martinigansl). There are legends about St. Martin that explain why the goose is important. And in Austria there might also be a special blessing for the wine or for the taverns (? Heurigen?) to be re-opened. Just in case anyone is looking for a good reason to have a party with a theme and tasty food and wine! It's always a great time to have a roast goose.
Made these tonight; they made the house smell heavenly. Tasty muffin BUT much too salty. I thought they might be (they call for 2 t. salt, 2 t. baking powder and 1/2 t. baking soda AND quite a lot of regular butter -- but I followed the recipe as written). I recommend cutting the salt to no more than 1 t.; even so, I think I'd use unsalted butter. Very flavorful; even better with a bit of organic raw agave drizzled on top. Not sure what to serve them with though! (I am sure they would be fine with the 1/2 C. AP flour swapped out for whole wheat pastry flour, by the way). Also, in a standard-sized 12 muffin pan I had probably 3-4 muffins left over.
p.s Regarding corn flour, there really is a very finely ground corn product that is labeled Corn Flour (Bob's Red Mill makes one) -- it's definitely NOT corn starch. I would not substitute cornmeal; the texture would be too coarse.
For all concerned about the corn flour - yes, it is corn flour. Cornmeal is difficult to find in any grind but "coarse" but if you do (medium or finely ground) it would be a fine swap. Bob's Red Mill makes Corn Flour, as @MelCrawf states.
@MelCrawf - indeed, it should be written "unsalted butter" and I've made that change. If you use unsalted butter they are not too salty.
Well, I made mine with plain old Martha White yellow cornmeal and they were fine. I added more chopped leek than was called for and didn't bother with the extra step of putting some on top. I used whole wheat flour instead of the all-purpose, also, and I didn't think they were especially heavy.
I had them for lunch with split pea soup and they were lovely!
I made these for a potluck today in madeline pans, just making a few substitutions for what I had around, and they're heavenly. I am going to warm them up right before serving in a toaster oven so the same nutty, crispy, cheesy flavor comes out. Also, since they're madeline shaped, they're more adorable!
I just made these and they turned out really well - nice texture, great flavor. (FYI they didn't need baking as long as recipe called for for me.) Heartily recommend.
Two teaspoons of salt means there's over 383 mg. of sodium in each muffin, which is incredibly high. A single serving should be no more than 140 mg. The recommended daily maximum of sodium for one adult is only 1 teaspoon (2300 mg.), and you've doubled that in just these muffins alone. How much more was ingested in the rest of the meal? You're on sodium overload, folks, and headed for high blood pressure and heart disease.
OOPS - shame on me! I didn't even add the sodium in the cheese or the baking powder or baking soda. The baking powder adds 980 mg. of sodium and the baking soda adds another 500 mg., plus the cheese, which is another 1440 mg. of sodium comes out to a whopping 7520 mg.! That puts over 626 mg. in each muffin. The real crime with high sodium foods is that if they fed to children on a routine basis, it increases the liklihood they will come to love very high sodium foods for the rest of their lives and they'll pay a big price for it later. I know - been there, done that and now I'm in congestive heart failure. I'm sitting here with swollen ankles right now and I had NO extra sodium yesterday. switching to reading recipes at Sodium Girl's site, and ignoring recipes like this one. It's a killer. Yes, I hate the food police, too, and you're free to kill yourself with food, but for your kids' sake, stop the eating insanity. If you don't do it on your own, the government will take it all away from you. Read labels, people.
I made these a couple of weeks ago and they were delicious.
In response to BarbaradG, even if these are high in sodium, I would say that as with everything: In Moderation. These muffins also use almost an entire stick of butter, buttermilk, and a heaping gob of cheese. I don't think anyone is kidding themselves that these are especially healthy.
I made these to go with homemade beef stew and they were delicious! Leeks are a wonderful addition to the corn muffins.
Aren't lantern walks the best? My mom's a Waldorf kindergarten teacher, so I spent Monday afternoon setting up a forest full of lanterns. Amazing.