Cornbread Muffins are a thing of beauty. They are salty, sweet, bready - everything I love (execpt the carbs). I usually buy Jiffy CornBread Mix and add a few things in it to make it special.
Cornbread Muffins:
1 box of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
1/2 - 3/4 cup frozen white corn
4 dashes red pepper flakes
1 egg
1/3 cup non-fat milk
lime zest
muffin liners
Combine all ingredients into a bowl and let sit for a few minutes. Spoon mixture into muffin tins with liners until halfway full. Follow the directions and bake according to the box.
Enjoy with a little slice of butter and some more lime zest.
Next time you want cornbread, try this version.
ReplyDeleteInstead of making corn bread muffins, bake it in your grandmother's cast iron skillet, then cut it into wedges. Very cool and very fun. Since you have Grandmommy's cast iron skillet, I use your Great-Great Aunt Stella's, inherited when she died at 92 in San Antonio, and lovingly hauled home in my suitcase.
This recipe is from my "vintage" aqua-covered 1972 edition of Joy of Cooking. This cornbread is not sweet, as your Texas relatives still make it this way. Plus I like it better.
First, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. It will take at least 15 minutes to heat up the walls of the oven, not just the air in it.
Grease your cast iron skillet with a little canola oil and place it in the hot oven until sizzling hot.
Meanwhile, sift or mix together:
3/4 cup all-purpose (unbleached) flour OR whole wheat flour (my favorite)
2 1/2 tsp. double-acting baking powder (is there really any other kind?)
1 Tbl. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt (I use kosher)
1 1/4 cup cornmeal
Put these dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk them together (or you can sift them together into the bowl, but not very effective with the whole wheat flour).
In a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup, use a fork or little whisk to mix the following liquid ingredients:
2 Tbl. bacon fat, melted in the microwave (use a separate small Pyrex bowl to do this and cool it off a little)
1 cup skim milk (of course you can use fattier milk if that's what you have)
Warm the milk for 30 seconds in the microwave so that it is not icy cold
1 egg
Whisk all the liquid ingredients together and pour into the center of the dry ingredients. Combine with a few rapid stokes using a wooden spoon or silicone spoonula (not a whisk which will gum up instantly).
Using heavy oven mitts, pull the hot cast iron skillet out of the oven and pour the batter into the hot pan.
Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes until done.
Cut into 12 pie-shaped wedges, serve, and tip your hat to your Texas hetitage.
You can also make these as muffins in a muffin tin, and you can grease the muffin tin and also put it into the hot oven first. The advantage to this is that you will not need to use muffin papers, as the cornbead forms a tasty and satisfying crust in the hot pan.
By my calculation, each wedge or muffin is 106 calories.
Try it. I think you'll like it.