Filed under: in the kitchen
Confession: When I want cornbread, I break out a box of Jiffy and just dress it up with creamed corn and chilies to fake everyone else out. If my grandma does it, I’ve always reckoned I can too. Plus corn meal (like, say, rutabagas) simply isn’t something I’ve ever kept in the pantry.
But I did go out and buy cornmeal to dust the counter for no-knead bread. Now I’ve got five pounds of it. And when I want cornbread muffins to go with my lentil stew and don’t have any mixes, why not break out the ancient Better Homes and Garden’s cookbook and try my hand at making it from scratch?
Two immediate observations: Why does the recipe call for 14 muffins? Have you ever seen a muffin pan with anything other than twelve cups? And second: Good grief. I don’t have any milk.
So. The extra two servings of batter went into a ceramic ramkin all corn-puddingy like. Came out so crusty good around the edges and soft on the inside I may start doing that on purpose for all batter. For the milk, in went a 14 oz can of creamed corn and a quarter of a stick of unsalted butter to compensate for the missing dairy fat. Turned out pretty darned okay. Slightly dry, but most cornbread is, and I’d intended to slather it in butter and dip it in my stew anyway.
Had I had some, I could also have substituted sour cream or yogurt in equal measure (with chopped chives, and shredded cheddar, and mmm, everything in the fridge…).
Here’s to my first cornbread from scratch actually tasting good. Hoorah.
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architheque 
hooray! grandma would be proud! at least, i was, especially given the lack of milk — disaster averted!
Comment by lucy February 11, 2008 @ 7:18 pm:)
Comment by architheque February 12, 2008 @ 8:55 am