Cornbread Recipe with Actual Corn

I was looking for a cornbread recipe that uses actual corn and it was a near impossible task. I remember having cornbread with corn kernels in the past, although, where that was escapes me. What I do remember about it was how delicious the cornbread was and the addition of some corn gave it that extra something special that I'd been missing in other cornbreads I'd had since.

I ended up finding a recipe online and modifying it for my own purposes. I had no idea how this was going to work, but figured how badly can you screw up cornbread by adding corn, right?

Here is my modified version:

Ingredients

1 C cornmeal
1½ C cut kernel corn

3 C flour

2 C sugar

2 tbl baking powder

1 tsp salt
⅔ C olive oil
⅓ C melted butter
4 eggs
2½ C half and half

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking dish. This recipe makes a large cornbread so you'll want to use a 9 x 13 baking dish or something comparable.

First, mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking power, and salt. Pour in the oil, melted butter, eggs and half and half, then stir until moistened. Lastly, mix your corn into the rest of the ingredients.

Pour the batter into your baking dish and bake for approximately one hour. Use a toothpick to check that it's cooked through in the center by inserting it and checking for it to come out clean.

cornbread right out of the oven

cornbread sliced to eat

You can serve this warm or cold, with honey or butter, or even just plain. The bread itself does bake up rather dense which causes the corn kernels to mostly be at the top of the bread (as you can see in the photos), but it's still very moist and also very delicious.

I've made this a couple of times now, once substituting some of the sugar with honey as the original recipe calls for. I didn't notice much difference. I also substituted gluten free flour at Thanksgiving to accommodate my niece and it was still very delicious and not noticeable that the flour was gluten free.

Blueberry Muffin Recipe

Delicious 2nd attempt using longer recipe

I was looking for a quick and easy blueberry muffin recipe to use up the plethora of blueberries I had bought before they went bad. I found this recipe:

Seemed simple enough. I gave it a go. This was what the muffins looked like out of the oven.

First attempt at blueberry muffins using easy recipe

Honestly, I was a little disappointed. They weren't as sweet as I like my muffins to be and were really quite bland (even though several family members said they were delicious).

So the next time I had way too many blueberries in my fridge, I looked for another recipe to try that had more sugar! And found this one.

I changed it up a bit and this (because SUGAR!) was the revised recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS

1-½ c flour
1 c white sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
⅓ c olive oil
1 egg
⅓ c half and half
1 c fresh blueberries

Crumb Topping

½ c white sugar
⅓ c flour
¼ c Crisco butter flavored baking sticks
1½ tsp ground cinnamon


METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Line muffin cups with liners.
2. Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Add and mix oil, egg and half and half to flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together sugar, flour, Crisco, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.


I substituted half and half for milk in the recipe because we have skim milk in the house and I always like some milkfat in my cooking. I also substituted the Crisco for butter because I think it's easier to work with and bakes better than butter.

The amount of crumb topping made from the recipe was too much for the number of actual muffins the recipe made. Fortunately, I was making banana bread muffins at the same time and so I used the leftover crumb topping from this recipe to top the other muffins too.

The final result of these muffins really was to die for. This is now my go to blueberry muffin recipe...and I've decided this crumb topping needs to be put on everything and will use it when I try making eggplant bread again.

Eggplant and Walnut Bread Recipe

I decided a couple of weeks ago to supplement our grocery buying with organic fruits and veggies from a local farm, Grindstone Farm. In order to save a few bucks, I decided to order the prepackaged boxes that the farm puts together. With that decision, I knew I was going to get some vegetables I didn't normally buy, but I figured it was an opportunity to try to cook them in ways I'd never had before.

Cue the eggplant!

I received an eggplant in a box and wanted to do something different with it rather than the old eggplant parmigiana dish that I've had before dozens of times over the course of my life. With a quick Bing search, I found an Eggplant Bread with Honey recipe and was intrigued. I figured it would be similar to zucchini bread, and even the recipe says it's a twist on the carrot cake, so I decided to give it a go.

I substituted sugar in the original recipe for the honey because I didn't have any honey in my pantry, and I used walnuts as my nuts because that's what I had on hand. Following is the recipe I ended up with:

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups grated and drained raw eggplant
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup walnuts

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray loaf pan with Pam.
2. Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until well blended.
3. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt until moistened.
4. Fold in the eggplant and walnuts.
5. Pour into pan and bake for 40 minutes.

During prep, I found that it was actually a bit more difficult to grate the eggplant than I originally thought it would be. I peeled off the purple skin of the eggplant before I started grating even though I wasn't sure if that's what the original recipe expected. I was worried that leaving it in would be tougher to chew in the bread, so might as well discard it beforehand. Then I tried grating it from the bottom. No go. Once I shifted my eggplant onto it's side, it was much easier to grate. I did not remove the seeds.

After it came out of the oven and cooled a bit, my husband and I cut pieces off to try. Our first thought was that it was somewhat bland. I even considered this when I was making up the batter because there are no spices included like cinnamon or nutmeg. My husband thought it could use a crumb topping.

Regardless, it actually is quite good overall. I like it even better after it's fully cooled and has set for a day. It's very moist while still being firm, and does remind me of a zucchini or banana bread type recipe. If I have the opportunity to make it again, I will definitely use some more spices and add a crumb topping to make the husband happy. I'd like to try it with honey instead of sugar, and add dates, too.