Cornbread Recipe

A couple weeks ago we went to dinner as a family at Famous Dave's BBQ to celebrate Mike finishing a case that had basically been consuming his life.

I have been craving their cornbread muffins ever since!

I went to my monthly recipe club on the 11th and the item to bring is an appetizer. After a little internet research I found a recipe that is similar to famous Dave's.

I had what I thought was a great idea -- I would make my own cornmeal.

Do you have ANY idea how noisy popcorn in a VitaMix blender is? Whew! And I thought that grinding wheat was noisy. My blender survived the ordeal and the muffins are delicious.

The first batch I made was only so-so. But I have made them twice since then and they are awesome. I like to make them in the mini muffin pans because cornbread is so messy. Smaller bites equals less mess.

Recipe for regular size cupcakes below:

Ingredients:

2 cups yellow cornmeal (I ground popcorn like I grind wheat and made my own cornmeal)
1 (9 oz) package yellow cake mix (Most cake mixes are 18 oz – so use ½ box, or double this recipe)
2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup buttermilk (to make your own buttermilk combine: 1 ½ T dry milk powder + ½ cup water + ½ T white
vinegar or lemon juice; mix and let stand for 5 minutes)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
2 T light brown sugar
2 T honey
1 T mayonnaise

Cornbread Instructions:
Combine cornmeal, cake mix, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, set aside.

Combine milk, buttermilk, oil, eggs, brown sugar and honey in a bowl and mix well.
Add to the Cornmeal mixture and mix gently - there should be no lumps, but do not over mix.
Fold in the mayonnaise.
Let rest, covered, in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or up to overnight.

Preheat oven to 400° F. Spoon the cold batter into a greased muffin tin or a cast iron skillet.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the top is golden brown.

For the mini-muffins, bake at 400° F for 9 minutes.

They are great plain or even with honey and butter if you don't want to make the glaze.

Honey Glaze: You can make this ahead of time and store it, covered, in the refrigerator. Re-heat before serving.
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup honey

Glaze Instructions:
Heat butter in a saucepan until melted.
Stir in honey.
Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally.
Remove from heat. Drizzle over Cornbread.