I never thought I could be so excited about something with such simple ingredients. It had been a while since I had sent out one of my who-wants-to-eat emails, so I opened up my baking cupboard to see if I could throw something together without a run to Sobey’s in the snow. I had basic muffin ingredients and some cornmeal so I decided on a simple corn muffin recipe that I found in The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook (published by Simon and Schuster in 2009). This was a gift from my friend Susan who figured the only way to shut me up about my trip to New York and vanilla cupcakes was to buy me this cookbook and be done with it. I’ve had it for over a year and I’ve made the vanilla cupcakes numerous times, but never used the book for anything else. The corn muffins were pretty exciting for something I thought would be kind of boring, so now I’ll take some time to see what else Magnolia has to offer, besides what all the tourists line up for.

1 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease well 9 cups of a 12-cup muffin tin. In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, making a well in the centre. Stir in the liquid ingredients until just combined, being careful not to overmix. The batter may be lumpy. Fill the muffin cups about three-quarters full. Bake for 18-20 minutes until lightly golden or a cake tester inserted into centre of muffin comes out with moist crumbs attached. Do not overbake.

This is a recipe you could really drag your ass out of bed for in the morning. Perfect for a breakfast or brunch or for baking after yoga class, like I did. See? They’re the kind of muffins that turn you into that person who wants to make muffins after yoga class. After you’ve finished rolling your eyes at yourself, you’ll marvel at how lovely and dark golden their edges are and how nice they taste just out of the oven with butter and strawberry jelly and a cup of tea.