Just as promised: Jalapeño Cornbread

Didn't I say I was going to share a recipe for the cornbread I had with my chili the other night? Well, I at least try to keep my promises, so here it is. I have always loved cornbread. I remember my mom making it when I was a kid. Those chili dinners were pure you, and we ate it with butter and honey. Getting older I remember serving cornbread with chili when friends were over for dinner, and they simply didn't get it. In Sweden rice is the given thing to serve with chili. To me cornbread makes perfect sense, the perfect excuse to have something that is closer to cake than to bread but for dinner. Couldn't be better.

This time I actually decided to make my cornbread a bit savorier by adding jalapeños and scallions. This contrasts nicely with the sweet bread. You can omit this if prefer simple sweet cornbread, or take it one step further and add nutritional yeast to the batter. Another alternative would be adding pumpkin seeds in the place of jalapeños. I chose to bake my cornbread as muffins, but you can bake it in a cake pan too. The recipe makes enough for 4 muffins, and a double recipe would probably fill a 20 cm*20 cm/8*8" pan.

Makes 4 muffins

1 dl corn meal (polenta)
1 dl all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. sugar
1 ¼ dl vegan milk
1 tsp. vinegar
2 tbsp. canola oil
1 dl sweet corn
½ jalapeño, finely chopped
1 scallion, finely minced
Optional: 1 tbsp. nutritional yeast

Pumpkin seeds to sprinkle on top
Coconut oil or other oil for greasing pan
Additional corn meal for breading pan

Turn the oven on to 175°C/350°F.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Make a whole in the middle and add the wet ingredients. Mix from the center and out to incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Add the sweet corn, jalapeños and scallions.

Grease 4 cups in a muffin pan with coconut oil. Sprinkle with corn meal. You can also use muffin cups, but I think this method gives the muffins such a nice crust all the way around. Divide the batter between the muffin cups and sprinkle the tops with pumpkin seeds.

Bake in the oven for 16-20 minutes, until a knife inserted at the center of a muffin comes out dry. Enjoy them with chili while they're still warm.