Cleo Coyle's Cornbread with a Twist + Book and Tote #Giveaway News

On most mornings, my writer's work table
doubles as my breakfast table!

Here in New York, the beloved toasted corn muffin, slathered with butter, has been a classic morning nosh at diners and delis for decades. Maybe that's why I prefer to eat my cornbread as a breakfast food or an afternoon coffee-break cake.

I know many of you don't see it that way. For you, cornbread is strictly a dinner item, served as a savory side with ribs or chicken. You might add corn kernels or chopped jalapeños to your batter but never sugar. 

To you I say, keep an open mind... :)

☕  A Recipe Note from Cleo

Cleo Coyle has a partner in

crime-writing—her husband.

Learn about their books

by clicking here and here.

If you’re no fan of dry, grainy cornbread, this may be the recipe for you, with or without the sugar. The crumb is tender and tasty (more cake-like). The sour cream is my secret, along with my (subjectively favorite) ratio of flour to cornmeal.

I sometimes cut calories by using low fat milk and reduced fat sour cream; and I sometimes increase the fiber and nutrition by using white whole wheat flour (more on that below).

This sweet cornbread is delicious plain, slathered with butter, or even drizzled with orange blossom honey. And speaking of a slight note of citrus, that's one twist I enjoy giving to my breakfast corn bread. 

With a bounty of beautiful oranges cheering up our winter produce aisles, I like to add a little orange zest to my morning cornbread at this time of year. The light orange fragrance in the warm, sweet bread starts off my winter day just right. If you’re not a fan of oranges, leave it out. But it you are, you may enjoy it as much as I do. 

BY THE WAY...

This is a peak time for California and Florida oranges. They're a great source of vitamins and with winter taxing our systems, they’re also a good immune booster. So enjoy some oranges with your cornbread and coffee!

My note on "white whole wheat" flour…

This lighter type of whole wheat flour gives you the fiber and nutritional benefits of whole grain but with a taste and texture closer to white flour. You can substitute "white whole wheat flour" for all-purpose flour at a 1:1 ratio. While this won’t work in an angel food cake or puff pastry, you can get good results using it in cookies, muffins, brownies, quick breads, and yeast breads. Learn more from King Arthur flour by clicking here. 

☕

To download a free PDF of
this recipe that you can
print, save, or share, click here.

Click for the free recipe PDF

Cleo Coyle's
Cornbread with a Twist

Makes one 8- or 9-inch square pan of cornbread
(This recipe will also work in a 7 x 11-inch pan.)

Ingredients

1 large egg
1/2 cup milk (whole, 2%, or skim)

1/2 cup sour cream (regular or low fat)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup canola (or vegetable) oil
1-1/2 cup all-purpose flour (for more fiber and nutrition I often use
          “white whole wheat flour,” more info on this above)

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

(optional) 1 tablespoon orange zest (grated orange peel, no white pith)

CLEO NOTE: If you've never "zested" an orange, lemon or lime, Chef Gordon Ramsay will show you how in the video below... 

If you don't see a video below, click here to watch it.

CLEO NOTE CONTINUED... 

Although I have a boxed grater like Chef Ramsay's, I find a microplane grater/zester makes zesting citrus fruits even easier and well worth the small investment. To see the microplane tool (and/or purchase one for yourself), click here. 

To see an example of a microplane grater used in a recipe, jump to my Lime Meltaway Cookies post by clicking here or on the photo below...

Cleo Coyle's
Cornbread with a Twist

(See Ingredients above)

Directions:

One bowl mixing method: First preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit. In a mixing bowl, whisk together egg, milk, sour cream, sugar, salt, and oil. 

When the mixture is well blended and the sour cream smoothly incorporated, measure in the flour and cornmeal. Evenly sprinkle over the baking powder and soda. If using, add orange zest now. 

Switching to a spoon or spatula, mix to create a lumpy batter. Do not over-mix or you’ll develop the gluten in the flour and your cornbread will be tough instead of tender. 

Prep an 8- or 9-inch square pan by coating with 
non-stick spray (or buttering and dusting with flour). 

Pour batter into pan and 

spread into an even layer.

Bake in preheated oven
for about 25 minutes. 

When a toothpick inserted in the center 

comes out clean, remove from oven. 

Cool, cut, and... 

Eat (and read) with joy!   

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author
of The Coffeehouse Mysteries &
Haunted Bookshop Mysteries

This is us >> Alice and Marc.

Together we write as Cleo Coyle. 

Friend us on Facebook here.
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CLEO JUST SENT OUT HER

NEW YEAR'S NEWSLETTER.
WITH TASTY RECIPES AND

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Southern Sides in a Snap: Corn Pudding

First—congratulations to Helen K.!

Helen K. suggested our next Secret Ingredient for the Mystery Kitchen Iron Chef! She’s won a $25 chocolate gift from Fannie May Chocolates. What was the secret ingredient? Find out during our next Iron Chef week in late February!

Last week I featured a really easy side item…Crock Pot Macaroni and Cheese. I thought I’d post another easy Southern side dish that can be pulled together in a hurry—corn pudding.

Corn has always been a Southern staple. We love it on the cob (with lots of butter and salt.) Dishes like Lowcountry Boil (see below) include corn alongside the sausage, shrimp, onion , and potato. And my favorite thing as a kid were corn muffins and cornbread (again…dripping with butter!) Oh…and grits are made from roughly ground corn.

This corn pudding is a weeknight favorite for the family. It takes no time to prepare and the kids love it. You could make this dish less fattening by substituting some egg substitute and some low-fat sour cream. We have the fattening version here. :)

Quick and Easy Corn Pudding

2 eggs, beaten
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 package cornbread mix
1 stick melted margarine
1 cup sour cream

Spray a casserole dish with cooking spray. Combine all the ingredients and bake at 375 degrees for 30--35 minutes.

For a creamier version, use the same recipe but use a small sized can of creamed corn and a small sized can of whole kernel corn.

********************************************

Sometimes I think that I’ll make this recipe with fresh corn that I cut from the cob. Maybe even fresh corn that I grew myself! But then, well, it’s the simplicity and ease of this casserole that makes me continue cooking it this way. But one day? When I have a lot of time? I’ll be making this with my own fresh-cut corn and homemade creamed corn. One day! :)

Riley/Elizabeth
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig
Delicious and Suspicious (May 2010)—Riley Adams

http://mysterywritingismurder.blogspot.com

Cleo Coyle's Corn Muffin Tops a la Julia Child

☕ From Cleo Coyle (August 7, 2009): I find it difficult to fathom that cooking in 1949 was far from glamorous. Sixty years ago, celebrity chefs were not whipping up 30-minute meals on TV. Men and women weren’t chucking their Wall Street careers to enroll in culinary school and legions of journalists weren't writing about the latest Chef Prodigy to descend from Mount Gastronome. Back then, working in a kitchen was considered a lowly, non-intellectual profession. It wasn't even an acceptable middle-class hobby. It was something the hired help did.

Cleo Coyle created two
bestselling mystery 
mystery series, which she
writes in collaboration
with her husband. To

learn more, click here. 

Well, Julia Child didn’t care. In 1949, at the age of 37, this brave lady walked in to Le Cordon Bleu “weak in the knees and snozzling from a cold,” according to her memoir, My Life in France.

“By now I knew that French food was it for me," Julia wrote after living in France for a year with her husband, Paul.  "I couldn’t get over how absolutely delicious it was. Yet my friends, both French and American, considered me some kind of a nut…They did not understand how I could possibly enjoy doing all the shopping and cooking and serving by myself. Well I did! And Paul encouraged me to ignore them and pursue my passion.”

All I can say is: Thank heaven 

for the "nuts" of this world!

Julia struggled through her courses at the male-dominated French cooking school, but she soon flourished and began teaching others what she’d learned via cooking classes, cookbooks (her Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I is considered a seminal work in the culinary field), and a television show, The French Chef, which so many newbie cooks grew up watching.

Confession: I wasn’t one of them. For one thing, I was too young and for another my mother and aunt, who were born in Italy, had already established a culinary tradition in our house of braciola, zucchini frittatas, homemade biscotti, wedding soup, and eggplant con everything (along with my Pop who made his own wine and grappa from the grapevine in our suburban backyard). Beyond them, my wider foodie education really didn’t begin until the 1980's with Jeff Smith’s PBS show, The Frugal Gourmet. Until I purchased Julia Child’s The Way to Cook in the early 1990’s, my awareness of Child was (in all honesty) limited to Dan Aykroyd in drag. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you're in for a comedic treat...

👇 👇 👇

To go back down SNL memory late, click the arrow
in the window above. If you do not see a window above,
then click here to watch Saturday Night Live comic legend
Dan Aykroyd playing Julia Child on YouTube. 

So now there’s a movie (opening today) celebrating the late Julia Child’s life: Julie & Julia, directed by the amazing Nora Ephron. To see the trailer, click on the arrow in the window below...

If you do not see a window above, 
click here to watch the Julie & Julia trailer on YouTube.

Cleo's battered
(but well-loved) copy
of Nora Ephron's
culinjary-themed
roman a clef. 

Author, director, screenwriter, Ms. Ephron is truly one of my heroes. Her roman a clef, Heartburn, is a seminal work for me. That's my battered (but well-loved) copy of her book in the picture.

Well, I learned that Julia Child is one of Nora Ephron's heroes; and as I learned more about Child's life, I couldn’t help but admire the woman and be inspired by her, too.

With Ms. Ephron's film opening as a catalyst, I began searching through Julia Child’s massive The Way to Cook for a recipe to discuss: A feather-light soufflé, perhaps? Butterflied leg of lamb? How about duck pate baked in its own skin? Then I turned a page and saw…Buttermilk Corn Sticks. What?! I thought. Corn sticks? In The Way to Cook?! (I’d never noticed this before…)

“Definitely dressier than cornbread baked in the traditional square pan,” Julia wrote, “for which I usually use the recipe on the Quaker cornmeal box, corn sticks are so shapely you can well serve them not only at breakfast but at lunch, at dinner, or at high tea.”

Yes, you read that right. Tucked into this 528-page culinary master work, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Julia Child admits to using a recipe on the Quaker cornmeal box! How can you not love this woman?!! But that was Julia, I have to say: After reading her memoir and viewing some of her old shows, I now understand that she was never about haute cuisine for haute sake. What drove Julia Child was a simple, down-to-earth desire to share her hard-earned knowledge and sincere passion for good food.

Photo Credit: Lynn Gilbert, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via
Wikimedia Commons

Click here to watch Julia teach you 
how to cook. (She’s such fun, too!)

Back to the Corn Bread

Julia is right, of course. The basic recipe on the Quaker cornmeal box is a good one. Still, Julia knew that small changes to a standard recipe could yield even tastier results. She chose to replace the “skim milk” with buttermilk, reduce the sugar to 2 tablespoons, and increase the cornmeal in the cornmeal to flour ratio.

While Julia's is a perfectly fine version, I decided to learn from her example and make my own changes…

(1) Flour Ratio: First of all, the increase of corn meal in the ratio of corn meal to flour troubled me. I personally like the taste and grainy texture of corn meal, but I’m in the minority. My own readers have told me that they prefer a more cakelike corn bread product--so I flipped the ratio, weighting the flour for a smoother textured muffin.

(2) Sugar: Julia stated outright that she simply did not care for sweet cornbread. But I do. So does my husband. When it comes to a breakfast bread or afternoon break with coffee, nothing comforts and satisfies like a sweet corn muffin (so my recipe is sweeter than Julia's).

(3) Liquid: Julia’s choice of replacing the milk with buttermilk was inspired but most people don’t have buttermilk on hand, and I knew milk alone would not provide that slight little “tang” on the tongue that gives the corn bread yet another layer of flavor.

My answer—sour cream. 1 cup of buttermilk in Julia’s recipe became ½ cup milk and ½ cup sour cream in mine.

And finally I had an issue with the stick part of the corn stick molds. You see, no matter how much I buttered or oiled or sprayed the cast iron molds; no matter how much I pre-heated them and re-greased them, some of my corn sticks would stick. And (honestly) how many people even have cast iron corn stick molds in their cupboards?

What to do? Well, Julia herself gave me the solution (providing the "a la Julia Child" part of this recipe). If you don’t want to use corn stick molds, she advises you to:

“…form 2-inch rounds on the
baking sheets with a spoon.”

Muffin Tops!

Okay, so Julia didn’t call them "muffin tops," but that’s what they are in my adaptation of her recipe. As you’ll see in my photos, a 2-inch round with my recipe will spread and rise (with the help of a dash more baking powder) into the exact dimensions of a really good muffin top. You don’t need a muffin top pan, either, just a greased baking sheet, a hot oven, and you’re good to go!

FOR THE RECIPE...

Click here or on the picture
above to get my version
of Corn Muffin Tops.

(The recipe will appear in PDF format,
which you can save or print.)

For the recipe, click here or on
the image above to download
Cleo's Free Recipe PDF.

In cclosing, I’d like to leave you with Julia’s own parting words at the end of her memoir, in which she recalls the first meal she enjoyed in France—a dinner that changed her life:

“In all the years since that succulent meal, I have yet to lose the feelings of wonder and excitement that it inspired in me. I can still almost taste it. And thinking back on it now reminds me that the pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite…”

~ Julia Child

At the end of my own recipes, I always say: “Eat with Joy!” But today, in tribute to one great lady, it seems only right to add:

Toujours Bon Appetit!

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author

of The Coffeehouse Mysteries and

Haunted Bookshop Mysteries

This is me -- Cleo (Alice) 

with my husband Marc.

Visit our online coffeehouse here.

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"The powerhouse writing duo that makes up
Cleo Coyle has done it again with this
19th installment of the Coffeehouse Mysteries.
What do I love about these books? EVERYTHING…
HONEY ROASTED needs to be on every mystery
lover’s to be read list."

—Fresh Fiction

"Red herrings pop up at every turn and
relationships aren’t what they seem.
WITTY BANTER AND A TWISTY PLOT...
Coyle knows how to please cozy fans." 

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"Coyle's latest Coffeehouse mystery is
a honey of a tale....A primer on bees,
coffee, and some of New York's most
unusual and exciting areas make for a
FASCINATING AND MYSTERIOUS READ."

—Kirkus Reviews

"FANTASTIC WHODUNIT…well-written
and fast-paced…This is one of the best books
in the series and I can’t wait to see what
adventures await Clare and her friends."

—Dru Ann Love, award-winning reviewer,
Dru's Book Musings

Click here or on the image
above for the recipe guide

to Honey Roasted.

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Coffeehouse Books in Order
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Title Checklist of Cleo Coyle's
Books in Order