In one creative endeavor do people actively get a pass on copying/reverse engineering another's efforts: food recipes. In fact, it's nearly a badge of pride for a good cook to taste something at a restaurant and then attempt to recreate it at home. This practice is so old and valued, so woven into our culture, that it gets a free pass.

So when the wizard came home from the fancy grocery store with corn bread I was duly horrified. ‘But I can make that so easily, and for so much less money,’ I protested, cheap-arse^[1] .

Fine then, ze says, go ahead and make it. And so I did and it...was not a resounding failure, but definitely fell into first attempt category. Thus, this is one of those posts for my own benefit.

• 1-1/2 C corn meal
• 1 C white all-purpose flour
• 3 T granulated sugar
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 C canola oil
• 1/2–3/4 C whole milk
• 1 C (roughly) grated cheese (fancy yummy cheddar type, but it was starting to mold)
• 1 large jalapeño, minced, including pith and seeds
• 2 green onions, minced
• 4 small and 2 lg fancy olives, pitted and minced

430 oven (convection)

The batter having the same wetness as the cranberry orange muffin batter I make all the time, and it was too dry for the cakey consistancy wanted in the original. Have to do some research, though, to see if the leavening needs soda—most of the corn bread recipes in my old betty crocker cookbook called for that instead.

In addition to the texture problems, wizard claimed it wasn't sweet, cheesy or spicy enough. (Ze didn't really care about texture, only flavor. Ze says. Personally, I'm guessing delicate crumb will reinforce feeling of sweetness.) Thus, next iteration should perhaps be^[2]

• 1-1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 C flour
• 1 C corn meal
• 1/3 C sugar (doubled)
• 2 C shredded cheddar (slightly over 4 oz =2C, this was 4.5oz)
• 2 jalapeños, seeded and minced (2/3C minced)
• 1 C green onion (reduce to 1/2 C)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 C canola
• 7/8 C milk (batter should be wet)
• bake 25 min 400

Too much onion (not surprising, I put in double the amount I'd planned/recommended for myself). Otherwise, looks pretty good to go.

Onward and upward. Perhaps someday I'll post that cranberry orange muffin recipe, which imho is a variation on the classic version actually worth the effort.

UPDATE: Wizard fixed spelling; minor edits (last para); I made post public (oops) 29apr2012

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Sylvus Tarn