Jalapeño Cornbread
Who doesn’t like cornbread, especially as a starter during Thanksgiving? I wanted to give it a little kick in a completely unoriginal way by adding in some other veggies: corn (crazy, I know!) and jalapeños.
Everything that went into preparing this seemed like perfection. I love peppers, so adding some heat through jalapeños and sweetness through pimentos? Yes, awesome idea. Creamed corn for flecks of corn kernels (the fresh corn at the grocery store didn’t look too hot) for that kind of half-interesting texture? More brilliance. Really, what more could you ask for? (I suppose cheddar cheese, maybe bacon…but anyways…)
Well, the cornbread was tasty, but all of these bright ideas didn’t quite come together as I had envisioned and I would make a few minor changes next time. For instance, the creamed corn simply added way too much moisture to the bread (but having kernels in the bread was definitely nice). I also wasn’t thrilled with how it looked–all the specks of color make it look like a (sad) birthday cake! I like what the jalapeños added flavor-wise, but I’d skip out on the pimentos next time for the sake of not looking like confetti landed in my cornbread as their flavor contribution wasn’t exciting enough to merit the awkward appearance. I’d also tweak the corn meal to flour ratio for a slightly more crumbly textured cornbread. All of these criticisms aren’t to say run the other way–I would definitely start with this again next time, just with a few tweaks unless that strangely colorful photo up above looks good to you. 
- 3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
- 3/4 cup flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/4 cup (half stick) unsalted butter
- 1 cup cream-style corn
- 3 jalapeno peppers,
- a small bunch of chives
- 1 Tbsp pimentos
Before you do anything, preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together. Then, dice up the fresh items (chives, jalapeños, pimentos) and either open a can of creamed corn or scrape the kernels off of an ear of fresh corn. Add the diced veggies in with the dry mixture.
In a separate, smaller bowl, whisk the eggs and buttermilk, then incorporating the melted butter. Pour the wet into the dry bowl and stir just as much as necessary to get everything mixed somewhat evenly (don’t overdo it!). Pour the batter into a well buttered baking pan.
Bake for about 30 minutes. Give the center a poke with a knife to ensure that it isn’t still wet inside, and if you used creamed corn, you should probably bake for an additional 5-10 minutes. The top should be lightly browned, at which point, remove the cornbread from the oven and let it cool off a bit before you dig in.
Enjoy!
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