Everything is better with bacon, including cornbread!
Like guacamole, I never particularly liked cornbread until I started making my own. I think it’s a textural thing. As I started to taste various types of cornbread, I realized I definitely prefer sweeter recipes over the more savory ones, but few versions were anything I actually craved. Thankfully, my husband and I are cornbread compatible! In fact, I owe the success of this recipe to that wonderful man of mine. I asked him to pick up some cornmeal since I was running low and he came back with ground cornmeal. Switching the dry mix from a combination of flour and cornmeal to flour, cornmeal, and ground cornmeal finally got me to the exact texture I was looking for. I frequently make these without the candied bacon, since the bacon addition adds prep work that I don’t always have time for. But there are times when I just can’t say no to bacon!
- 5 strips bacon
- Magic Dust
- Ground pepper
- 1 cup flour
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- A dash of ground cloves
- A dash of ground ginger
- ¼ cup cornmeal
- ½ cup ground cornmeal
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup melted unsalted butter, cooled
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 heaping tablespoon honey (it helps to melt this into the butter)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ cup frozen corn kernels
- Grease muffin tin or line with paper liners and set aside
- Line a baking tray with foil and top with a cooling rack
- Spray the rack with cooking spray
- Arrange bacon strips on the prepared rack
- Sprinkle bacon with Magic Dust and ground black pepper
- Place tray on the middle rack of your cold oven (this helps keep the bacon from curling)
- Heat oven to 425 degrees
- Bake for about 10 minutes
- Flip bacon and carefully sprinkle with more seasoning
- Return to oven for about 5-10 minutes, or until crispy and golden brown (keep a close eye on it so it doesn't burn!)
- Remove tray from oven and cool completely before chopping or crumbling the bacon
- Lower oven temp to 400 degrees
- Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and spices
- Add both the cornmeal and the ground cornmeal, as well as the brown sugar and combine with a fork
- In a glass bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the milk, honey, eggs, butter, and vanilla
- Pour wet ingredients into dry mixture
- Stir to combine
- Fold in corn kernels and crumbled bacon
- Fill muffin cups about ⅔ full
- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees or just until set and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean
- Enjoy warm as is or with a pat of butter
- I usually make these with vanilla almond milk, but if you're looking for a little decadence, try equal parts of milk and heavy cream or half and half
- If you'd like a more traditional, coarser texture or don't have ground cornmeal on hand, increase the flour to 1 cup and the cornmeal to ¾ cup