I’m not much of a baker. In fact, I probably owe readers a report of some epic fails on a couple of bread baking attempts over the last year.  And cakes have been off my radar for years. But, I like eating baked things, especially freshly baked things, so lately I’ve been trying more simple baking recipes.  Ones that even I can’t mess-up.  Ones that allow you to play with them a little.

For last weekend’s chili cook, I baked-up a batch of corn bread.  I’ve posted this recipe before, but it’s a bit buried and corn bread is an easy bake that can go with a range of fall eats.  Plus, I’ve been told recycling is good for the environment.

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I know true corn bread is supposed to be dry.  But I’m not particularly a fan of the dry stuff.  To get past this dryness, Mike and I developed the below in some long ago gumbo cooks.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs (most would have use only 2)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 can of creamed corn
• 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar

Directions

Combine the dry ingredients in their own bowl.

In a separate medium bowl whisk the eggs.  Next, whisk in the buttermilk (if you don’t have buttermilk around you can make a good substitute by mixing one cup milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice).   Let that mixture get up to room temperature.  Next, melt the butter in large skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar.  Then add the sugar and butter mix to the room temperature egg/buttermilk bowl.   (Note: if you didn’t let your eggs and buttermilk get up to room temperature everything will fail here, the sugar and butter will get cold and start turning back into a solid.)  Whisk the liquid for a bit.

Now slowly whisk in large handfuls of the dry ingredients into the liquid and keep whisking until there are little or no lumps.  Next, put the batter into a greased baking pan.  Spoon a smattering of creamed corn onto/into the batter.  Finally, sprinkle the sharp cheddar on top and bake for about 30 minutes at 375 (or until it browns and a toothpick comes out clean).

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