Miniature Jalapeno Cornbread

So, this whole blog business started when I wanted to make some cornbread for some wonderful chili I was having for lunch. Without an oven, I thought that it might be impossible, but with the help of some tiny loaf pans and the old toaster oven, I got it done. I wanted to share my inspiration with you guys

So, most of this recipe comes from Mark Bittman's "How To Cook Everything", with some add-ins and and a slightly different procedure. First though, the cast of characters.

So, most recipes for cornbread would start off with preheating the oven to 350. Lucky for us, toaster ovens take about 3 seconds to preheat, so we'll take care of that later.

You make be wondering what vinegar is doing in the picture above. We're getting there. First put your milk (One and a quater cup) in a microwave safe bowl and nuke it for a minute. We're going to sour the milk (if this makes you squeamish, use an equal amount of either buttermilk or yogurt), so drop 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to the mix.

While that's curdling, let's move on to the dry ingredients. Add in corn meal (medium grind), flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl and stir them around. If you're paranoid about clumps, you can sift them together. You will likely only succeed in making the front of your shit yellow, which is fine if you were already wearing yellow.

I love cornmeal, it's such a pretty yellow and it's much more textured than flour. Try using it next time you're frying up a chicken cutlet, it makes a huge difference. You could also go crazy and make cornmeal chicken cutlets with polenta pancakes and MORE polenta, but only if you're like me.

Anyway, now the jalapeno. For this, you are going to want a small paring knife, like the one below.

Cut off the top of jalapeno and cut it lengthwise.

  Make sure you take out all of those seeds, they can be REALLY hot. If you're not a fan of heat, you can use a tablespoon of diced pablano pepper instead, or leave it out entirely.

Cut each half into about 6-8 small sticks and proceed to dice those into small pieces.

Now add the jalapeno to the dry ingredients and stir it around. This will coat the pepper in flour and prevent it from sinking to the bottom during baking. Remember, don't rub your eyes or nose after handling the pepper. I happened to do both, and the pain is just now starting to go away.

Put some butter (or olive oil, or bacon fat) up on the stove now and melt it. I tried cooking the jalapeno with the butter once, I managed to disperse the capsacin levels in the olive oil (that's what I was using), but also succeeded in buring the peppers... oops.

So, now your milk is full curdled, it should look like this

Kind of gross, but it will be wonderful. Beat in an egg and add some of this guy

Add as much as you'd like, but atleast a quarter of a cup. It's easier to mix the honey in with the wet ingredients, since it will dissolve in the warm milk.

NOW is the time to preheat the old toaster oven and take out three 2x4 (I think) loaf pans and grease them up really well. Trust me, I skipped the greasing step once and got a bunch of delicious loaves that looked like they'd been through the war. Make sure that you leave the little metal guard in on the bottom of the toaster, if you overfill the pans it will stop the batter from hitting the heating elements.

They're really adorable, right. So, on reason I love the toaster oven is the glass front. It lets me watch the cornbread while it's baking. I'm just upset I couldn't get a shot.

So, add the wet team to the dry team, and at the very end throw in the butter. Fill each of your loaf pans about half way. You may have a little extra batter, but that's cool.

After the oven had preheated for about 5 minutes, throw those bad boys in for 25-30 minutes, or until the loaves look brown around the edges and a nice golden yellow on top. Take them out, get them out of the pans and enjoy.

Look how pretty they are as whole loaves, and as slices. Can you see one of the curds?

I know it seems gross, curdled milk and all. Really though, each curd is like a little bubble of moisture in the bread. There's nothing worse than DRY, mealy, crumbly cornbread. This is exactly the opposite, it's moist, succulent, almost cakey cornbread. It has just the right combination of heat and sweet to make you want to eat a whole loaf. Not that I did...

Here's the recipe for you guys.

Miniature Jalapeno Cornbread (Inspired by the recipe from "How to Cook Everything")

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups cornmeal

1/2 cup flour

1 1/2 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp salt

1 jalapeno, diced

1 1/4 cups milk (or buttermilk, or yogurt)

1 tbsp white vinegar (only if using milk) 

2 tbsp butter or other fat

1 egg

1/4 cup of honey, plus extra

Steps

1. Sour the milk by warming it in the microwave for 1 minute and then adding the vinegar (skip this step if not using milk)

2. Combine dry ingredients (or sift them), add diced jalapeno and make sure it is coated in the dry mixture.

3. Preheat toaster oven to 350 and grease 3 1x4 (or something like that) loaf pans.

4. Melt the butter (or heat the other fat) on the stove and allow to get pretty hot.

5. Beat an egg into the soured milk and dissolve the honey in it.

6. Add the wet to the dry, stir gently, then add the butter.

7. Fill loaf pans about half way and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges of the loaves are golden brown and the tops are golden yellow. Enjoy!

(P.S. I know the shots are all mirror imaged, and no I don't live in some backwards world. I took all of the photos with my MacBook this time, and the camera does everything reversed.)