Cornbread/Corn Muffins

Last week I made chili for the Pat's game viewing at our house. When I made the chili I made it two, maybe three alarm and needed to put the fire out on our palettes some how, and thought bread would be good. But really did not want just white bread. Then it came to me, cornbread!!!

I have never made cornbread before and really thought I was not really a cornbread fan. Think about it every time you stop by Boston Market to get a quick dinner they seem to give cornbread but most of ours seems to go in the trash. This month thought cornbread was one of the feature recipes in Everyday Food magazine. (Yes, I love Everyday Food magazine.) And for some reason the cornbread looked so good and looked so easy to make, so I thought why not make cornbread to put the "chili fire out."

The one thing I have to say is when I made my cornbread I wanted to make it "user friendly." Meaning I made corn muffins with the same recipe so everyone could take a bowl of chili and a muffin. Such a good idea when there is a crowd. And I could freeze all the ones we did not eat for the next time I make chili or want a corn muffin with butter for breakfast.

This is what I did ...

Cornbread

1/2 cup or 1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cup of yellow cornmeal
1 cup of leveled all purpose flour
6 tablespoons of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt (if you only have salted butter omit this salt)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup of buttermilk
3 large eggs

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Either butter an 8" baking pan or line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl; cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. In a second bowl mix the wet ingredients; melted butter, buttermilk & eggs. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir till combined, but do not over mix.

Transfer to pan or muffin cups and bake.

When making one bread bake for 20-25 minutes, when making muffins bake for 12-15 minutes. In both cases bake till toothpick when inserted in center comes out clean.

This cornbread recipe came out so good, not too sweet and not too savory, they were pretty much perfect. I think there are many ways this cornbread base can go from sweet to savory with other flavors added to it as well.

Try this even if you are not a fan of cornbread, you might be like me and like it after all.

YUM!!!