Corn Muffins

What's going on here

Cornmeal has no gluten-forming proteins at all, so it contributes texture, colour, and corn flavour to this batter but none of the structural network that lets a baked good hold its shape and rise cleanly — that job falls entirely to the wheat flour mixed alongside it, the same reason cornbread carries a meaningful proportion of flour rather than being pure cornmeal. A ratio that leans too heavily toward cornmeal produces a muffin that's crumbly and prone to falling apart, since there simply isn't enough gluten-forming protein present to bind it; too little cornmeal loses the coarse, gritty texture and pronounced corn flavour that's the entire point of making this rather than a plain muffin. Medium-grind cornmeal, rather than fine or coarse, strikes the most reliable balance for a batter this quick to mix and bake — fine grind behaves almost like more flour, while coarse grind can stay gritty and undercooked in the short time a muffin spends in the oven.