My Best Southern Cornbread Muffins

Serves	6-12
By author	margaret at The Right Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups self-rising white corn meal mix (look for Martha White or White Lily brands)
1 Large egg
2 cups buttermilk (whole buttermilk, if you can find it)
1/4 cup vegetable oil (plus a bit more for greasing the muffin tin)
butter for serving

1.	Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Put cornmeal mix in a medium bowl. Beat the egg in a 4 cup pyrex measuring cup (or another medium bowl), add buttermilk and vegetable oil and mix until smooth. Pour buttermilk mixture over the cornmeal and stir until combined. Do not over mix…a few small lumps are fine. Set aside while you prepare the pan.
2.	Grease a 12-count muffin tin by drizzling 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil in each cup and spreading it around, making sure to coat the sides. Place muffin tin in the hot oven until very hot….you should be able to smell the pan and the oil cooking almost, but not quite, burning …this will only take 5-6 minutes if your oven is nice and hot.
3.	Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven and immediately fill with cornmeal batter, each cup about 3/4 full. The batter should sizzle and pop as you pour it in. Do this quickly and immediately return the pan to the hot oven. Bake until dark golden brown, 15-20 minutes.
4.	When the muffins come out of the oven, immediately remove them from the pan (otherwise the crusts will steam and turn soft) Serve right away with salted butter.
5.	Note: The muffins will still be great for a couple of hours but they are so amazing straight out of the oven that you'll have to try one, slathered with salted butter, right away.