Corndog Muffins

We had some leftover hotdogs that we needed to use up, so we decided to try corndog muffins, and we served them with some seasoned black beans, and tater tots with aïoli, and it made a very filling and tasty meal, also pretty quick, as we used canned black beans, and frozen tater tots. The basic recipe came from Epicurious, with some modifications by us.

The black beans we just heated up in a saucepan with some salt and pepper, and the tater tots we pan-fried in oil until they were nice and golden-brown.

One thing to note - the Epicurious recipe is just for a cornbread, which cooks in an 11x7 pan. Since we were doing muffins, we ended up needing about a 1 1/2 batch to fill up two 8-muffin tins. Since the recipe calls for 1 egg, that was a little awkward (how do you separate half an egg?), so we made a double batch, and then you can save the extra and make a couple more when you're done with the first 16. The following recipe is for a single batch, double it for 15-16 muffins, as we did.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups medium-grind stone-ground whole-grain yellow cornmeal
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 large egg
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• Grated cheddar cheese
• Hot dogs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Put paper liners in two 8-muffin tins. Lightly spray the insides of the muffin papers with oil, so the muffins don't stick to them.
   
3. Whisk cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in medium bowl to blend.
4. Whisk milk and egg in small bowl to blend.
5. Add milk mixture and melted butter to cornmeal mixture and stir just until blended.
6. Ladle batter into each muffin indent, filling them about 3/4 full.
7. Cut hotdogs in about thirds, and place one piece on top of each muffin.
8. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese on top of each muffin.
9. Bake muffins until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and let cool for about 5 minutes.

One more thing to note - next time we would put a little bit more seasoning into the cornbread, maybe some cayenne pepper or smoked paprika, and also add a little cheddar cheese to the batter, in addition to the sprinkle on top. We would also cut the hotdogs into smaller bites, and put several in each muffin, as it was a little hard to get hotdog in each bite with just the one piece on top.