And let me tell you, I am so glad that I did! These gluten free Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins were not only the best gluten-free ones I’ve ever had, but they beat anything that I made before going gluten-free as well! Yes, THAT good!
They are a bit on the sweet side, which I liked since our chili was a little on the warm side, but you can cut back on the sugar without a problem if you don’t want your cornbread sweet.
Gluten Free Buttermilk Cornbread Muffins
Author: Jeanine Friesen
Serves: 12
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine
- 2/3 cup white sugar (less if you want)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour (see Note)
- 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease muffin pan and set aside.
- In a microwave safe bowl, melt butter. Stir in sugar.
- Add eggs and stir to combine.
- Stir in buttermilk.
- Add dry ingredients, and stir until few lumps remain.
- Scoop into prepared muffin tin.
- Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to cooling rack. Best served warm.
Notes
The all-purpose gluten-free flour mix that I use is from Cybele Pascal. It is as follows: 4 cups superfine brown rice flour, 1 1/3 cups potato starch (not flour), 2/3 cup tapioca starch.
I am making these the next time I make my veggie chili!!! They look absolutely YUMMY!!!
What a gorgeous n exotic looking Muffins dear..great color n flavors!
These seriously look perfect. Do you think I could swap corn flour for corn meal? I just don't like all the little bits. I know, it's not really cornbread without those…but still, I'm dying to make these. Nice work!
@Carolyn – What Life Dishes Out Thanks, Caroline.
@singh from dominos india Thank you!
@Jenn/CinnamonQuill Thanks, Jenn! I'm not sure if that would require more liquid? Worth a try though (I love the bits)
Jeanine, these look fabulous! I love buttermilk cornbread. It is the only kind I make! I also use it for my stuffing at Thanksgiving all of the time! Your photo is beautiful, by the way!!
Beautiful photos and there is nothing better with chili than corn muffins!
Great blog! I live in Winnipeg and am wondering where you purchase superfine brown rice flour. I would love to try some of your recipes. Thanks
@Kim-Cook it Allergy Free Thanks, Kim! We've never ever tried cornbread for stuffing, maybe we will have to try that next time.
@Carol, Simply…Gluten-free Thank you so much, Carol. HUGE compliment coming from you, I love your work!
@laurie Hi Laurie! So nice to see a local here.
There aren't many (at least not many that speak up).
I've never had a problem with using brown rice flour from Bulk Barn. Seriously. I'm not sure what the texture of superfine flour is, because I've never really had a bad experience (due to the flours).
Have you been to Meyers Drugs? They have a LOT of GF foods (premade, frozen, convenience, etc), cereals, flours, etc.
Cornbread muffins..I love 'em. I should make my own, once in awhile I have that treat at Montana's.
@betty r Oh, I LOVED Montana's cornbread before going GF. So good!
@Jeanine Thanks for the info
. I haven't been to Meyers but hear it is good. I will give it a look.
@laurie No problem! If you know of any great GF finds in Wpg, please let me know.
@Jeanine Can do! I'm pretty new to gf. I was diagnosed with wheat, flax, and oat intolerance/allergy and can't ignore the symptoms any longer. Sooo..gf it is. Love, love, love, that you are local too! (I've been lurking for a few months!)
@laurie Glad you finally came out of lurking.
If there is anything I can help you with, just drop me an email jeanine(at)thebakingbeauties.com and I'll see what I can do to help!
@Jeanine Thanks, I will. Have a great day!
@laurie Thanks, same to you! Keep warm!
I made cornbread with this recipe, not muffins (used my own flour blend of brown rice, sorghum, buckwheat flours, tapioca starch and potato starch) and doubled it for my large family. I almost forgot the cornmeal and had to pull the pan out of the oven to add the cornmeal. I was hoping it would work okay, it had only been in the oven about 5 minutes. I also reduced the sugar slightly (only 1 cup total). Even after all this it was still the best cornbread I have ever made! It was moist and sweet, just how we like it. I served it with Southwestern Chicken Stew. I might add a couple of cans of drained corn next time because we like that too. Thank you so much for the recipe! My family thanks you too.
It’s silly to get all worked up over a cornbread muffin, I told myself. Just be glad that going gluten free is going to help you, I told myself. And still, sitting at lunch every day this week, my first week of being gluten-free, I wanted to cry over my stew. I brought a delicious southwest pork stew, but no crackers. No pretzel sticks. No cornbread, no hot roll. It wasn’t the same. Oh I just wish there was actually a GOOD gluten free product I could trust.
I can’t afford to buy all these loaves and hate them. I’ve got to learn to bake in a whole new way. I can whip up baked goods with flour with the best of them. Yeast never scared me. But gluten free? Oh god, all these new ingredients. I shant make it, I’ll perish.
But, I took out a small loan, pawned all my jewels, and bought a variety of gluten free flours, gums, starches and other concoctions, and carefully set them up in my new GF pantry. Called a local college student and gave her all my wheat based foods (to her delight). And then shrugged my shoulders and said eventually I’d learn to bake GF and until then, just eat your soup and suck it up.
That was yesterday.
Today I found this recipe and I’m so pleased. It looks easy. It isn’t unusual. It’s short. It doesn’t look mysterious and intimidating. You say it’s light and fluffy and you have based this on both pre and post GF. I am assured! Yay! I have those ingredients, I still have 2 quarts of that darn soup left to eat, and by golly, tomorrow, I’ll have your muffins to go with it.
I won’t perish. I won’t!!!
Thanks for sharing! The chili sounds yummy too. Can you share that recipe? Thanks!
I had to tell you… I have been making this recipe since April of last year a few times a month, with some slight modifications. I double it (always, we have 10 people in our home), I reduce the sugar to 1 cup, and I use 1/2 cup apple sauce (instead of doubling the butter to 1 cup), I also sometimes add dried minced onion and onion powder. I bake it in a large glass baking dish. Tonight I decided to try something a little different. I made a double batch like I normally do, then I poured about 3/4 of the batter into a 9 x 13 glass pan (to bake). In the left over batter I added more cornmeal to make a stiff batter. Then I fried the dough in hot oil for hush puppies. They were so good! They were not dry like most I have had, they were actually moist! I didn’t make the dough too dry, It was like a stiff cookie batter (like drop cookies). I scooped some batter with a spoon and pushed the batter into the hot oil with my finger. I don’t know exactly how much more cornmeal I added (maybe 3/4 to 1 cup), I just eyeballed it. I’m now thinking of doing this again, but with more sugar/sweetener and adding whole kernel corn for corn nuggets! Oh, how I’ve missed corn nuggets.
Thanks so much for this great recipe!
That is awesome, Dee! I’ve never had a hush puppy, but now you’ve got me intrigued.
Made this tonite for my GF daughter (and us) to have with Black Bean soup. OMG! TERRIFIC! Best muffins ever, GF or not! Wonderful recipe, followed it precisely. Our whole family loved it! Thank you!
That is awesome, Cameron! They are my favorite cornbread muffin too, and you can even cut the sugar back by half and they are still fantastic. Glad to hear that it was a hit!
I made these tonight to go with a black bean/sweet potato chili, and they were excellent! I’ve been gluten free for 9 years and do lots of cooking and baking, and these are the BEST cornbread muffins I’ve ever had. Taste and texture are perfect! Added bonus – a way to use up that extra buttermilk that I never know what to do with.
I used a rounded 1/3 c. sugar and found that to be great. They were sweet enough to eat on there own that way. Anyway, great recipe!! I just added it to my collection – which is only the cream of the crop, so that’s saying something. 
Thanks again!!
Yeah!! So happy to hear that, Lindsay! Happy to have made “the cut” for the cream of the crop recipes.
Just made this— delish! I put all the ingredients in my bread maker and set it to ‘rapid white,’ which is the shortest baking setting. It came out wonderfully moist and sweet. Thanks for the great recipe.
Best corn muffins I’ve made since going gluten free 7 years ago. Family loved them. Used Domata all purpose gf flour which contains xanthan gum & reduced sugar to 1/4 cup. Thanks!
Awesome! Glad to hear that, Carol! Thanks for letting me know that the flour blend works for you!
Due to limited cornmeal I supplemented with corn flour (half and half)…..I also cut the xanthan gum in half and they turned out great! (My husband (not gluten-free) could still taste the xanthan gum, so I will try to reduce it more, next time. I loved them!
Hmm…your husband could taste the 1/4 tsp xanthan? Really? You ‘could’ try baking these without any xanthan. Using corn flour will work, just give you a different texture than all cornmeal would.
Thank you so much for this recipe…I made it tonight to go along with chili and I am pretty sure this was the best cornbread I’ve ever made. It was so moist, usually cornbread is dry and crumbly it seems but this was just perfect. My husband, who does not get that excited about food (it’s just something you have to have to live), and who does not like cornbread, said “wow, this is really good” and then wished he wouldn’t have eaten that peanut butter sandwich with his chili and had the cornbread instead. If HE thinks it’s really good, then it is amazing!
I used an all purpose gluten free flour by C. C. Dolch Bakery, and didn’t check to see if it had xanthan gum already, so next time I will probably omit the xanthan gum called for in the recipe. I also didn’t have buttermilk so had to do the old vinegar-in-milk trick, but wow wow wow it was soooo good!! I’m sharing this recipe on my blog and linking to you, thanks so much!
That just makes me smile, Dawn! Glad to hear that it was a hit with everyone.