Mini corndog muffins are on our kids’ top 5 favorite things to take for school lunch. They are incredibly easy, unbelievably quick to whip up and ideal for the freezer making this a must have for lunches! Take about 5 minutes in the morning to throw everything together, about 5-7 to let them bake and your kids will have a tasty meal for the days to come.
Begin by preheating your oven to 375 degrees and generously greasing your mini muffin tin. You can absolutely make them in a regular muffin tin, just adjust the timing by adding 3-5 minutes.
For your muffins, start by mixing your melted butter and sugar together in a medium size bowl. This is called creaming your butter, which is vital in most baking recipes. The purpose is to create air pockets of steam with your leavening agent (baking soda), this will help ‘puff’ up your muffins. If you fail to do this, it will most likely result in flat muffins.
Once your butter and sugar is well combined, add in your eggs and whisk together. Eggs are the emulsifier or glue that will help blend together the wet and dry ingredients and your muffins as they bake.
To finish the wet ingredients, add your buttermilk to the egg and butter mixture. Whisk until well combined. You can substitute milk for this but your muffins will really be lacking in texture and taste. Buttermilk creates a dreamy lightness and tenderness in your muffins. It is ideal to use when baking with baking soda, the acid in the buttermilk neutralizes the metallic taste from the baking soda.
In a separate bowl, combine your flour, cornmeal, baking soda and salt. With baking there is a certain order and importance to each ingredient. Above I have stated the importance of all the wet ingredients. For the dry; the flour is needed as the base or structure of your muffins. When combined with the wet ingredients it creates gluten that stretches to hold the combination of creamed butter and baking soda. Cornmeal has a light, sweet taste with a crumbly texture when baked; however, it does not contain gluten so it will not rise or ‘puff’. Thus, the reason we need flour. Again, the baking soda is the leavening agent here. This is vital for the rising of your muffins. Finally, the salt. It’s main purpose is to enhance the other flavors while balancing out some of the sweetness.
After your dry ingredients are mixed, add half of them to your wet ingredients bowl. Whisk them together. Adding them in smaller portions makes it easier to combine and provides less clumps of flour mix in your batter.
Now, add only half of the dry ingredients left in your bowl. This would essentially be a quarter of the total dry ingredients. Save the other half (or quarter) to use with your hot dogs. I’ll explain.
Set your batter aside and grab your hot dogs. Dice them in to bite size pieces. This is the only step you can adjust to your preference. When dicing the hot dogs I prefer to cut them in to about 1 inch chunks and then quarter them. It gives the kids a piece of hot dog in each bite. With our smaller kids, the smaller pieces are ideal. However, if your older kids like to eat them and you are doing regular size muffins, feel free to make them larger pieces.
Pull that leftover dry ingredients bowl back out now. Toss your hot dog bites in to the dry ingredients. Coating them in dry flour/cornmeal first before mixing them in the wet prevents them from sinking to the bottom of the batter. The flour grips on to the hot dogs and then helps them latch on to the batter.
For the mini muffin tin, use a cookie scoop to measure out the batter and pour in to the greased muffin tin. If you choose to use a regular size, use an ice cream scoop. Either one should give you about 3/4 full pans. Then bake for 5-7 minutes for a mini pan or 8-12 for the regular size. The muffins should be lightly golden on top and cooked through. If you’re unsure, grab a toothpick and poke it in the middle. If it comes out clean you are good to go!
*If you want to store them, use an airtight container and store in the fridge for about a week or place them on a lined baking sheet and flash freeze. Then, store them in a freezer safe container and they should last about 2-3 months.
Mini Corndog Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin tins, regular or mini
Ingredients
- ½ C. Butter melted
- ½ C. Sugar
- 2 Eggs
- 1 C. Buttermilk
- ½ tsp. Baking Soda
- ½ tsp. Salt
- 1 C. Cornmeal
- 1 C. Flour all purpose
- 1 pkg. Hot Dogs cut into bite size pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease muffin tin well and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, mix sugar and melted butter.
- Once combined, add eggs and mix well.
- Add buttermilk and set aside.
- Combine baking soda, salt, cornmeal and flour.
- Add half of the dry ingredients in to wet and stir until combined.
- Take the diced up hot dogs and toss in the dry ingredients to coat them. Once coated, add them and the leftover flour mix to the wet ingredients. (This will help the batter stick to the hot dogs so they don't sink.)
- If using a regular muffin tin, I like to use an ice cream scoop or you could use a 1/4 measuring cup. When using a mini muffin tin, use a cookie scoop or a tablespoon to scoop batter.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 8-12 minutes for regular size or 5-7 for minis. Keep an eye because each oven is different.
Notes
