Q & A with Mummsie April 17, 2011

Phil asks: Hi - I've been reading your blog at the suggestion of Grant Cunningham, and I'm hoping you might have some advice for me:

I've been trying to develop a recipe for bacon cheddar jalapeno(or chipotle) cornbread, and my efforts so far have been edible, but not outstanding. Can you offer any suggestions? I would add that my goal here is to develop a cornbread that is simultaneously moist, savory, sweet and spicy, with definite salty-smoky bacon flavor and, ideally, some textural crunch from the bits of bacon. Also, I prefer to bake it as muffins in a 12-cup tin, for convenience in serving.

I have done a batch with a half-pound of cooked chopped bacon, with the bacon grease added to the batter - it was a decent-tasting batch, but again not outstanding. Do you think I could take a shortcut by adding the chopped bacon to the batter uncooked, and letting the oven cook the bacon and render the fat into the cornbread during the baking process?

Thanks in advance for your attention.

 Phil, thanks so much for following Grant’s advice and stopping by I hope I can give you the help you need here to make this amazing sounding cornbread you have in mind.

I think the best way to tackle your question is to tell you how I would go about figuring out the recipe if it was me.

The first step is to find a basic cornbread recipe that you love, to use as the foundation of this experiment. You want to find one that fulfills your expectations in regard to base taste, texture and sweetness/savory areas. I would suggest unless you want a very sweet cornbread that you with a Southern style recipe that contains buttermilk and baking soda, those seem to play better with spicy and salty flavors in my opinion. Next get that recipe just the way you like it. One thing I do many times is to switch out the buttermilk with orange juice this sweetens it up a bit and gives a nice background flavor.

The next step in this process is to switch out the fat that is called for with your rendered bacon fat, using the amount that was called for in the recipe. The balance of flour, liquid, fat and leaveners is a delicate balance that is important in the end result. If you add too much fat you will upset this balance and probably end up with a very heavy finished product.  I would not add the bacon raw because part of what gives bacon that wonderful flavor we all love is the frying process. If you just put the bacon in raw it will at best just steam in the bread, leaving you a limp blob. At this point you might also add in some ground cumin, its flavor will accent the bacon’s smokiness and help to bring it out.

Don’t forget to stir that cooked bacon into the batter too. You might also want to save a few pieces to scatter over the top of the batter once it is in the pan (before baking) especially if you are making muffins so you know there are bacon bits in every bite.

Next you can feel free add your other ingredients, the cheese and peppers. I think I would go with the chipotles myself because of the wonderful smokiness they offer to the party. 

I hope this helps you some in your quest, let me know how it turns out and feel free to ask more questions.

Now after talking about cornbread, I am craving some myself so stay tuned for a cornbread recipe in the near future.