As a Southerner, I’m morally opposed to sweet cornbread. Where I grew up, cornbread is for sopping up the pot liquor from a mess of collard or turnip greens. It’s moist on the inside and has a crispy crust from being baked in a cast iron skillet. It is not the cake-like confection that passes for cornbread in some Northern restaurants. So why’d I go and put raspberries in my corn muffins? Who knows! But I did, and they were a real treat.
In my defense, I have to say that these muffins aren’t really very sweet. They won’t be any good for pushing your black-eyed peas onto your fork, but they won’t put you into a sugar coma, either. My husband, who really doesn’t have a sweet tooth, thought they were the perfect dessert, while our daughter E, who inherited a full set of my sweet choppers, drizzled them with maple syrup. And yeah, I resorted to the maple syrup, too. Because even though I like my regular cornbread unsweetened, once I added berries, I wanted these muffins to be just a touch sweeter. Sorry, Mama. I hope you can recover from the shock.
Gluten-Free Raspberry Corn Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cup millet-chia flour (see notes below) (4 ounces)
- 1 cup yellow corn meal (5 ounces)
- 3 tablespoons corn starch
- 2 tablespoons natural sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsweetened soymilk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 1/2 cup plain soy yogurt or apple sauce
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 6 ounces raspberries
- Optional: 1 tablespoon raw sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 F. Oil a non-stick muffin pan or place 12 silicone muffin cups on a making sheet.
- Combine dry ingredients in large mixing bowl. Whisk together the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Add the wet to the dry and stir until mixed. Gently stir in the raspberries.
- Divide the batter equally among the muffin cups. If desired, sprinkle the tops with 1 tablespoon raw sugar. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing the muffins. Serve warm.
Recipe Notes
To make the millet chia flour, process 1 cup of millet (7 ounces) with 2 tablespoons of chia seed in a high-powered blender until finely ground, stirring once or twice to make sure all seed is ground. Then use one cup of this mixture (about 4 ounces) to make the muffins and reserve the rest for another use. Using at least a cup of millet results in better grinding than using a smaller amount.
Variations:
*If using pre-ground millet flour, measure 1 cup and then remove 1 tablespoon of flour. Add 1 tablespoon of ground chia or flax seed to this.
*To make this with whole wheat flour, use 1 cup of flour and 1 tablespoon chia or flax seed and omit the cornstarch.
*To make them a little sweetener without adding calories, add a touch of stevia to the batter. NuNaturals’ lemon stevia would give them a nice flavor.
Nutritional info uses soy yogurt and optional sugar.
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Alyssa | Queen of Quinoa
Susan, these sounds delicious! I’ve been craving muffins, but haven’t had my recipes turn out recently. I will definitely be trying these ones! Hope you have a great weekend 🙂
Susan
These look delicious. Which grind of cornmeal did you use? I have a package of coarse grind that I could process down to medium or fine.
Susan Voisin
I used finely ground cornmeal.
Lisa @ The Raw Serenity
This looks and sounds amazing!
I can’t wait to try these.
I am defiantly a savory girl but for muffins a like them a little sweet 🙂
I may add a few drops of stevia to the mix.
Thanks for sharing x
Kim C
These look great! I’ve tried your skillet cornbread before and that recipe came out amazing. I can’t wait to try this one. I may even post it on my blog, I’ll link back to you for sure though 🙂
Jacqueline
They are so pretty when they are cut into and the thought of the maple syrup drizzled over them, mmmmmm!
KC Jennings
UGH! More gluten free! Do you realize over 90% of people who say they are gluten intolerant really aren’t, according to a rccent medical study. It is an incredibly good money maker, tho. Gluten free relies on huge amounts of eggs…not good for a vegan. Just sayin….
Susan Voisin
There are no eggs in this recipe. And I don’t know who would be making money from it…the millet people? 😉
Also, I gave instructions for people who want to use whole wheat flour, so I can’t figure out what your objection is. I know people whose health depends on their following a gluten-free diet, so I just wanted to make that a little easier for them.
KC Jennings
Sorry….didn’t mean to be crabby. Gluten free seems to have taken over so many of the vegan sites and so many grain free. It’s just frustrating at times.
Susan Voisin
I understand. I try to keep things in balance here: last week’s recipe was gluten-FULL (a wheat salad) so this week’s is gluten-free. And I’ve done other cornbread recipes that gluten-free people have to adapt to remove the wheat flour, so this time I turned it around so that people using wheat have to do the adapting. A couple of weeks ago I did a refined sugar-free recipe, but this one contains sugar. People eating oil-free often have other food restrictions, so I try to have something for everyone.
Lynn
Susan, I really appreciate your gluten-free recipes. Thanks so much for providing the option. I ate gluten accidentally about a month ago and got a migraine that lasted a week! Looking forward to making these; hopefully frozen raspberries will be okay.
Karen
Just want to add my 2cents. THANK YOU for the gluten free! I LOVE wheat, and always have , BUT in many places I’ve seen that wheat, while we may not be allergic, can be a “Inflammation issue” esp in joints, and as my change of diet from veg. to true vegan was because of RA mostly, I am most grateful for recipes that “work” w’out the all pervasive wheat!
Sarah
I’m gluten-free not because I have celiac’s disease or because some test has told me that I have a problem with gluten. I am gluten-free, because like so many other people I know, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE wheat products and if you put a loaf of wheat bread in front of me, I will eat it…..all of it! I could live on bread, muffins, and cookies made with wheat. They are oh so good! Gluten-free breads, muffins, and cookies? Not so much! I enjoy them once in awhile but I don’t overeat them, fill up on them and forget about eating my veggies because I am too stuffed from bread. I know a lot of people who avoid gluten and wheat products for this very reason. So thanks, Susan, for posting a gluten-free recipe that looks good. I’ll try it, likely enjoy it, and maybe make it or another gluten-free dessert type treat every 8 weeks or so and I’ll still have plenty of room left over for my potatoes, rice, other whole grains and my veggies.
Kathleen @ KatsHealthCorner
Those sound delicious! I prefer my cornbread to not be so sweet, so I know these would be perfect for me! 🙂
Courtney
Wow–I haven’t commented in a really long time, I don’t think! Crazy. But I have been reading 🙂 Anyway, I just had to say–I may not be a Southerner, but I am with you…sweet cornbread?! Blasphemy! This recipe looks great. I am obsessed with berries lately…I may try it with blueberries!
Courtney
Susan Voisin
Hey Courtney, it’s good to see a comment from you! I think blueberries would be good. I bought blackberries (which are local here, unlike raspberries) but in the end, I just love the color of the raspberries. 🙂
cait
Looks so yummy! Can I sub brown rice flour for the millet flour?
Susan Voisin
Yes, that should work. Good luck!
Corrin Radd
I have no interest in gluten-free, but I am interested in getting a variety of whole grains into my diet and this looks like a good way to eat some millet. I’ll be making these. Thanks!
Walt
I am not gluten-free, but my son is autistic and suffers from eczema (which helps to keep him from being all he can be because of the itching), and I’ve begun to hear than reducing or eliminating gluten can help, so I am beginning to look more at gluten-free recipes. Are there alternatives if I can’t find the millet? (I haven’t seen it locally, although I admittedly have not been looking for it.)
Thanks for all you do! Your recipes have helped us find new taste treats since we went vegan in April.
Susan Voisin
Any gluten-free flour should work, but they all taste different and will give different results. Millet has a more neutral flavor than buckwheat or quinoa–that’s why I chose it. If there’s a Whole Foods or other natural food store near you, look for millet in the bulk bins.
Cara
I confess I had no idea that sweet cornbread was only a Northern thing!
Linda
Hey, these look really good. 🙂 I would like to make them for me boyfriend next week (he avoids gluten), but no store around here sells ground chia or flax seed and I have no way to ground it myself. Is there something else I could use instead? (I assume it is for binding?)
-Linda
Susan Voisin
You could try using an extra tablespoon of cornstarch. Also, if you have a blender, it’s easy to grind chia or flax 1/2 cup at a time.
sepeters
Linda, I have a crummy blender, so i use my coffee bean grinder when i need ground flax. I had to use it for this recipe as well, so i halved…and then quartered it to get it to fit. : ) It works extremely well and gives it a fine texture. Just make sure you dust the grinder out very well with a pastry brush before and after. Hope that helps!
Chana
I made this with blueberries and white whole wheat flour and it was delicious! Never had a savory muffin before. It was so good I didn’t even miss the sweetness. Thanks Susan !
Chana
I’m not sure this is the place for this but… WALT: I have a neighbor who has two autistic sons. When she eliminated gluten and casien from their diets they were “changed men” as she puts it. I wish you and YOYR family the very best of luck. Hope this info helps you. Best wishes.
Walt Huntsman
Chana, thanks for the best wishes. We have eliminated dairy at home (although I think our son still gets it at school), which has reduced the amount of casein in his diet. And, while we are not gluten-free, we have cut that a bit as weel by at least occasionally incorporating rice pasta when we have pasta dishes. If I can find some gluten-free (and vegan) bread recipes that do not require fancy bread machines or heavy-duty mixers, I will certainly give them a try. Some research is in order, I think. In the meantime, this recipe looks tasty, and I have found a store that sells millet flour, so I will be giving this a try.
Hope
I’ve been following your blog since for about 9 months, though I haven’t commented on anything until now. I just wanted to say that, I too grew up in the South, eating plain cornbread. When I was a kid, my mother would break it up into a drinking glass, and pour buttermilk over it, to be eaten with a spoon once it became soaked. She also served it with pinto beans and fatback. While I stopped consuming dairy and meat years ago, I still deeply enjoyed plain, non-sweet cornbread with beans, or as a side dish to soups. I moved to Massachusetts in 2008, and one of my first complaints about the food was the unfortunate overabundance of sugary cornbread. I also found it nearly impossible to get a decent-tasting biscuit in New England, unless I made them at home. There is something about the idea of sweet cornbread that just offends my Southern sensibilities. 😉
Tom
MILLET-CHIA FLOUR!!!
OMG!! NOTHING LESS THEN SHEER BRILLIANCE on Susan’s part. SOOOOOOOO creative. SOOOOOOO appreciated. Susan – WELL DONE!!!!!
Alisa
Susan, now I understand why my husband, who has a huge sweet tooth likes savory cornbread…he is a Southerner. I want to say how much I appreciate your wonderful recipes, you have started me on a journey to better health. So I have a tough question for you, are there any substitutes for baking powder & baking soda? I can no longer use them due to the irritation they cause my stomach. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Susan Voisin
That’s a tough question! (And I’m sure it’s a tough situation to have to live with.) The only thing that springs to mind is yeast–in other words, making “quick breads” not so quick yeast-raised breads. I’ll do a little research, and if I find anything, I’ll post it here.
Jackie @ Vegan Yack Attack!
I’m loving this recipe! It looks delicious and the ingredients are easy to find; a lovely little breakfast!
Lindy
They look lovely, thanks so much for the recipe.
sepeters
Yummy, thank you again! I made a batch of these, putting golden raspberries in half the muffins (it’s what I had on hand, but prefer the reds) and adding a little stevia to the rest and chopped anaheim pepper. I preferred the spicy/sweet ones and the balance made them still good for sopping up savory liquids. Maybe that makes it less heretical.
cate
I am unsure if I did something wrong, but these came out terrible and tasted even worse.
Elizabeth
I couldn’t help myself…I had to keep it a BIT savoury…I added 1 tsp of Jalapeno powder!
It’s perfect – a little bit sweet, and a little bit spicy.
🙂