Homemade Convenience: Make Your Own Cornbread Mix

Convenience foods are a great modern marvel for busy moms. A great convenience with a price to match. With barely a bit more time in the beginning of the month, you can make a batch of 4 dinners worth of cornbread mix to last you the month (if you use it once-a-week) or so.

My mix is like a lot of recipes all over the internet- I mean really, the proportions of the same ingredients is what makes it cornbread, right? But, I mix mine a bit differently to get the texture I like.

Begin by shifting together 4 C of flour, 1 TBS of salt, (woah, sounds like a lot until you remember it's for 4 pans!) and 1/4 C of baking powder.

Mix in 1 C of sugar.

Then, cut or "rub in" 1 C of shortening. You can use a pastry cutter, two forks, or your fingers. I prefer to use my fingers because you want this mixture to get MUCH finer than biscuits or such... more like sand texture than pea-sized bits of shortening.

Click photo so see larger & see texture

Now, THOROUGHLY mix in 4 C of cornmeal. Now it looks kinda like yellow Moon Sand. Too bad it doesn't behave like it though...that'd be a spiffy money-saving recipe! 

Ditto...

You can keep the mix in an airtight container in the fridge, or separate your batch into four portions. (2 1/2 C each.) I like to use quart-sized bags.

There's 3 because the 4th is in a bowl getting made. Yum.

To use, take 2 1/2 C mix (or your portion), and mix with one egg and 1 1/4 C milk.

Bake at 425 until a toothpick in the center comes out clean.