Best Muffins for a Fall Family Chili Dinner

Before they were an entire breakfast and dessert combined, muffins used to be a great accompaniment  to dinner and a nice change from toast  with breakfast.  In fact, now there are so many varieties of  those huge "cake" muffins, you hardly ever see just a plain regular muffin. That's what I call them, "cake muffins"because it's like eating cake for breakfast.  

Fall is a wonderful time for muffins.  My mom, Sophronia, used to make great muffins when it started getting cool outside.  She made two kinds; plain and corn, and, they were always comforting. They were simple and delicious warm, dripping  with butter and strawberry preserves, which was my favorite way of eating them in the mornings for breakfast.   When we ate chili for dinner, we had corn muffins.  Any of these muffins are equally great with chili as well as with bacon, eggs and tea.

Here are my mother's recipes below.  Although the recipes call for greased muffin tins, you can use muffin cups.  Please note below. Be careful!  Do not beat the batter. Overmixing the plain batter will cause development of too much gluten in the flour and yield a tough muffin.   The corn muffins do require a thorough mix, however.


So, in my humble opinion, here are the best muffins for a family chili dinner.

Sophronia Baden's Family Muffins

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 TBs sugar

1 cup milk

2 TBs melted butter or shortening

1 egg, beaten

Sift and mix dry ingredients.  Combine liquid ingredients and add to dry ingredients.  Mix just enough to moisten the flour.** Do not beat.  Fill greased or buttered muffin tins 2/3 full.  Bake at 400° F 20-25 minutes.

**IMPORTANT  Muffin batter should be stirred or mixed gently only until the dry mixture is moistened.  It should never be beaten. 

Mom's Corn Muffins

1 cup flour

2/3 cup yellow corn meal (We always used Indian Head Yellow Corn Meal. I still do.)

2  TBs sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs, beaten

2 TBs melted butter

2/3 cup milk

Sift and mix all dry ingredients.  Combine eggs and milk.  Add melted butter.  Pour all into corn meal mixture and mix thoroughly.  Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 400° F for 20-25 minutes. 

Enjoy.