1943 Purse String Recipes: Corn Meal Muffins

Corn Meal Muffins (1943)

Tonight I decided to give one of the recipes from the Feb 1943 Woman’s Day magazine a try. Most of the recipes would have required an extra trip to the supermarket but I happened to have all the ingredients for the Corn Meal Muffins located in the Purse String Recipes section on page 45.

We used to make our Corn Meal Muffins with 2 eggs and 2 teaspoons of baking powder, and used margarine or vegetable shortening for the fat. The muffins are just as nice when we use only 1 egg and increase the baking powder to 2 1/4 teaspoons. To conserve fat, we use meat drippings in place of shortening. We save 5 cents by making these 2 changes.

Corn Meal Muffins
Costs 11 Cents (January 1943)
Makes 16 Muffins Woman’s Day Kitchen

1 1/3 cups sifted flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup corn meal
1 egg, grade B
1 1/4 cups milk
3 tablespoons melted drippings

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add corn meal and mix well. Combine slightly beaten egg, milk, and melted drippings. Add to dry ingredients and mix only until blended. Do not beat smooth. Drop into hot, well-greased muffin tines; bake in hot oven, 400 degrees F., about 20 minutes.

Mixing the wet ingredients into the dry

This recipe is pretty straight forward. I had to make some substitutions: Used gluten free baking flour with the baking powder already in it, didn’t have “meat drippings” handy so used pure olive oil in the same amount, obviously used a grade A egg as I’ve never seen a grade B egg. I followed the instructions and ended up with a fairly thin batter which thickened up a bit in the time it took me to get the pan ready.

Mixed Batter

I buttered the muffin tray and then poored the batter evenly between the 12 muffins. Followed the instructions to bake for 20 minutes and this seemed the perfect time for my oven.

Cooked Muffins out of the oven

Now an interesting thing was the muffins had risen quite a bit during baking be fell quite flat as they cooled off. These are not fluffly, light muffins. Using a knife around the edges it was not hard to get the muffins out. The muffins tasted like…well old-fashioned corn meal muffins. They were moist, compact, and filling. Everyone enjoyed them. They were easy to make and I think I’ll be making them again.

Let me know if you give the recipe a try. I wonder if the normal flour recipe would turn out any different than making it with the gluten-free flour?

Tags: 1940's, 1943, budget, corn, day, free, gluten, historical, homefront, housewife, magazine, meal, muffins, purse, rationing, recipe, string, war, woman, world