Cake+Cornbread=Dangerously Delicious

Pin attempt #33 Sweet cornbread

Recently I went for lunch at a restaurant we have here in Fort Worth called McKinley's (which is super yummy, but very busy) and with the sandwich I ordered they put a little mini cornbread muffin. I have a long standing love affair with cornbread and I never deny myself any when it's offered (especially for free). This particular muffin was DELICIOUS and I had never had one so sweet and cake like. I was telling someone about it later and they informed me that they most likely used yellow cake mix in their batter, hence why it was so sweet and amazing.

Fast forward to today and I was deciding what to make with the Crock-pot chicken chili (not a Pinterest recipe, but I'll share it at the end) and obviously I thought of making cornbread. It dawned on me to try this new idea of using yellow cake mix in the batter and I just happened to have some in the pantry.

The original pin called for a whole box of both the corn muffin mix and the yellow cake mix, but I know I didn't need that much so I decided to half the yellow cake mix part. Now the measurements of the milk, eggs, and oil will depend of what brands of mixes you use so you may have to do the math yourself if you don't use these specific brands. I used:

1 box of Jiffy corn muffin mix

1/2 a box of Pillsbury Moist Supreme Yellow Cake Mix

3 eggs (1 that the corn muffin mix called for and 2 for the cake mix)

3/4 cup of milk 

1/6 cup of oil

Bake at 350 for 27ish minutes (that's how long my oven took to get the toothpick to come out clean)

I mixed in my Kitchen Aid on low for about 2 minutes until most of the lumps were gone.

I was being lazy and had no interest in pouring out muffins so I made one batch in my 10 inch silicon cake pan (which I sprayed with Pam, because well we're still making cornbread and that s*** sticks to everything)

Into the oven at 350 degrees. I set the first timer for 20 minutes, checked it and thought 5 more minutes would do it. I toothpick tested it after the time went off and thought 2 more minutes wouldn't hurt. Moral of the story is keep an eye on it and between 25-28 minutes should do it. (I have no clue how long muffins would take, you'd have to experiment with that one yourself)

Fresh out of the oven! I cut it in small cake like slices to serve.

Obviously you can tell how I felt about it, but my disclaimer is that I really love sweet cornbread. It was delicious but on the cusp of being too sweet to eat with chili. Joe loved it as well and I wouldn't be surprised if when I wake up in the morning there isn't much of it left. Kathryn asked why we were having cake with dinner, and proceeded to devour all but the crumbs of hers. The best part of this cornbread is that the yellow cake cuts down a ton on the normal grittiness of regular cornbread. It is still enough like cornbread to warrant eating warm with butter but could easily be confused with a dessert. I'm sure my Texas friends could easily adapt this into a jalapeno and cheese variety, but I will stick with my sweet cornbread instead.  I will make this again, probably a lot, however there will be occasions where normal cornbread seems more appropriate. If you like your cornbread sweet, you do have to give this a try at some point.

Now I promised my chicken chili recipe, which is not so much a recipe as it is a process of throwing stuff from the pantry into the Crockpot.

2 chicken breasts (I used already cooked shredded chicken breasts I had in my freezer but you could easily throw the chicken breasts in and shred the meat after it's finished cooking)
1 can of pinto beans (or black beans)
1 can of crushed tomatoes
1 jar of salsa (choose whatever flavor and brand you like best)
1 can of corn
1 packet of chili seasoning (I used mild but going as spicy as you want)

Cook on low for 8 hours in the Crock-pot. It is fairly basic and is better when you add in some fixings at the end like cheese, sour cream, or Tabasco sauce. It's an easy throw together dinner you can add your own flavor to without a whole lot of effort.