Wednesday, June 25, 2008

the secret to the perfect corn cake...

Normally I don't post recipes and such here; I live that in Tara's far more competent hands. Check out the Butterworth Family Times link, and from there click on Tara's Kitchen if you want some cooking ideas. But this particular cooking story amused me to no end, so I though I'd share. :) It's too funny not to!

I love IHOP's corn cakes. They're like cornbread crossed with a pancake, and yum, are they good! I have gotten several recipes from the Top Secret Recipes website (http://www.topsecretrecipes.com/home.asp), including one for IHOP's pumpkin pancakes. I make those fairly often, and they're always good. So I was pretty excited when Top Secret Recipes posted a step-by-step for IHOP's corn cakes as well. I eagerly printed the recipe and whipped up a batch.

Well...you win some; you lose some. The corn cakes weren't terrible by any stretch of the imagination; they just weren't quite what I was expecting. The ingredients list was long, and while the recipe was by no means complex it was a bit tedious. I shelved it, and I haven't made the corn cakes since.

Until yesterday.

Last month, we got our first box of food from Angel Food Ministries (wonderful program--check it out at http://www.angelfoodministries.com/). Included in the order was a little box of Jiffy cornbread mix. And lo and behold, on the side of that little box was a recipe for corn cakes. Very simple--just the box of mix, an egg, 3/4 cup of milk, and 2 tbsp. melted shortening (I used olive oil instead). Sarah wanted pancakes for breakfast yesterday, so I decided to try that little corn cake recipe.

WOW! They were delicious. Sarah devoured her breakfast and asked for more at lunch. They were everything I had hoped for in the other recipe...and much, much easier.

So...the secret to perfect corn cakes? A little box of Jiffy Mix! Who would have figured? ;)

A photo of my lovely corn cakes... :)



It occurs to me: now that I've posted about pancakes, this blog has finally lived up to its name! ;)

3 comments:

Tara said...

You really should post more recipes Karen; you are an awesome cook!!

Anyway, these look good and I'm going to have to make them for Nick. Those little boxes of Jiffy mix are only like $.24! :-)

Yay for pancakes!! :-)

Chelsea Lyn Dilbeck said...

Those sound good. mallory and I are trying to cook more so you and Tara are very inspiing. By the way, did we tell you that we made your brownies from the recipes you sent us awhile back? They were really good! One night, we were sitting around, wanting dessert and Mallory busted out your recipe and it turned out that we had everything to make them right in our cupboard. Thanks for sharing!

Tara said...

I made these corn cakes today and they truly are delicious! We loved them!