gluten free cornbread muffins

i adore corn bread. with a bowl of chili, or on it's own smothered with butter and a drizzle of honey. yum. there's a cafe in my neighborhood - the sunlight cafe - that serves wonderful gluten free cornbread. however, their cornbread is made into a loaf and cut into slices, which in my opinion is way less fun that getting to eat a cornbread muffin. they would not share their recipe with me though, so i've been testing a few different gluten free corn bread recipes over the past few months... and here is the results! i've played around with different flours and ratios - this recipe is very adaptable to ingredients you have on hand, but here are my preferences. i'm sure you could use any gluten free baking flour mix, but i especially like the combination of flours here with a bit of buckwheat - it gives the cornbread a lovely brown speckle and nuttiness. i use fine cornmeal, rather than coarse polenta - but you could experiment with a mixture of the two if you enjoy a coarser cornbread. enjoy!

1/3 cup brown rice flour

1/3 cup soy flour

2 tablespoons buckwheat flour

3 tablespoons tapioca flour/starch

*(or use 1 cup of your own gluten free flour mix)

1 cup cornmeal

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 large egg

1 cup milk, milk substitute or buttermilk

2 heaping tablespoons of honey or brown sugar

1 cup frozen sweet corn, thawed and drained (optional)

heat oven to 375 degrees. sift all dry ingredients together. add butter, egg, milk and honey and mix until just combined into batter (does not have to be perfectly smooth - small clumps are ok!) finally, fold in the corn kernels. pour batter into muffin pan lined with cupcake wrappers... about 1/4 cup batter per muffin. bake for 15-20 minutes.

you could also pour this batter into a 9x9 baking pan, lined with parchment paper or buttered. bake cornbread a few extra minutes (25 total or so) until golden brown around the edges.