Disney's Wilderness Lodge's Cornbread

So I'm gonna be upfront with you guys. Yesterday, was one of those days. It started by my spilling an entire glass of Diet Coke all over my coffee table. More than the fact that I had to clean up the mess, a whole glass of Diet Coke went to waste!! Then, Jane B made pot roast in the crock pot, so I decided to whip up some cornbread to go with. Instead of taking my computer downstairs (I now am residing in the upstairs of our house... I got the whole place to myself!), like I usually do when cooking, I just wrote the recipe down on a post-it. I mixed everything together, and put it in the oven. 20 minutes in, it wasn't looking right. So I left it in for awhile longer. Eventually I took it out, and something just was not right. It was hard and dense and nothing like I remembered (I made this a few months ago when I was still living in Orlando). And what I remembered was GOOD. REAL GOOD. The main reason I decided to make it again! So after dinner, I came back upstairs and looked at the recipe again. I forgot the baking powder. DUH! So, when you make this, just double check to get ALL the ingredients, or else it'll turn out all funny.

So, without further ado....

Disney's Wilderness Lodge's Cornbread (stolen from The Daily Disney blog--they also have tons of other faboosh recipes from Disney World!!)
*This makes about 12 servings, so when I made it today, I halved it, since ya know, it's just me and Jane B.
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, beaten
1 cup milk

First, mix all the dry and all the wet ingredients separately (okay, so I cheated and just put everything together. But it's up to you if you want to do it the "proper" way). Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until everything has just come together.

Don't over-mix it, or it'll get tough when it's baked. Pour into a greased baking dish.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 375 F. Let me go on another small diatribe about the oven at Jane B's house. It takes FOREVER, and when I say forever, I mean FOREVER, to preheat. I need to get in the habit of setting the oven to preheat, then coming back 30 minutes later to make my cornbread/cookies/pizza/whatever. It looks pretty fancy, all silver and shiny, and it's a convection oven (which I hear is better for baking), but dang, it takes forever to preheat.

So, don't judge me on the look of this cornbread. Like I said, I forgot the baking powder (which causes things to rise and get fluffy and yummy) so it was like a thick brick. Probably the photo from the Disney blog paints a better picture of what it's supposed to look like :o)

But, the pot roast wasn't that great either, so it kind of went together. At least it looks nice!

And another thing... Cornbread is so versatile and you can add all sorts of things to jazz it up a bit. This recipe is great because it's a blank canvas. My favorite is jalapeno-cheddar cornbread. Just throw in some chopped jarred jalapenos and shredded cheddar (use your best judgment on the amounts, if you want it super spicy and cheesy--add more!) and voila--southwest cornbread. You can even throw some cheese on the top to make it even cheesier. Use your imagination and be creative. Worse case scenario, you have to feed it to the dog!

Hope yours turns out better than mine did--don't forget that baking powder!!