Texas Longhorn Cornbread

I stumbled upon one of my greatest finds (when it comes to cookbooks) in a thrift shop the other day.

This beauty was only $2 and is a whopping 500 pages! It is a spiral-bound, home-cooking recipe collection from the Homemakers Association of Oklahoma. They break down the recipes into a dozen different categories, and the recipes were submitted from all over Oklahoma—from Ninnekah, to Pryor, to Durant. This cookbook is gorgeous and I’ve already found quite a few recipes that I want to try out as soon as possible.

That being said, two recipes have really stuck out to me as being, well, odd. I’ll give you brief breakdown of these two recipes:

• A bundt spice cake that contains ground breakfast sausage
• A fudge made out of velveeta

First, the spice cake with sausage. It is exactly as it sounds. A sweet, nutmeg-cinnamon-ginger cake that is typically reserved for apples or pumpkin. But ground pork sausage? Really?? I googled this and apparently it is a thing. You can find a couple dozen recipes online with pictures. I presume people would mainly eat this for breakfast…kind of like eat pancakes with sausage links. Still, I thought this recipe was just too weird. 

Next, a fudge made out of Velveeta. I’m not talking about a savory fudge, which I’ve seen before (basically a hard queso). No, no. This is a chocolate fudge that includes the creaminess of Velveeta cheese. I, again, googled this oddity and found numerous recipes for a fudge made with Velveeta. The authors of these recipes swear by it. They say the fudge does NOT taste like Velveeta, instead, the Velveeta just acts as a creamy agent like milk.

I’m still weirded out by it. What do you think? Have you ever heard of anything like this before?

After perusing this cookbook, I decided to make something I found from a different spiral-bound cookbook I picked up last year. I’m always on a mission to find the perfect cornbread, and I will forever be on that mission. However, this cornbread was pretty good. I thought the addition of buttermilk was a nice touch for this spicy, jalapeno cornbread.

This recipe called for “Longhorn cheese”. I discovered that “Longhorn cheese” isn’t a specific type of cheese (like Cheddar, Swiss)—-the word Longhorn only denotes the shape of the cheese, a half-moon shape. So, you can use whatever type of cheese you want in this recipe, whether it’s Cheddar or Colby or Monterey Jack! That’s where I got the idea for the name of this recipe…Texas Longhorn Cornbread. It just has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

Step-By-Step Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heavily grease a 17 1/2 inch by 12 inch baking pan, or an 8 inch round pan. Finely dice the jalapenos, leaving in some seeds and ribs to add spiciness to the batter.

In a large bow, mix the jalapenos with the creamed corn. Beat in the baking soda, salt, and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the buttermilk and oil; then whisk in the cheese and cornmeal.

Mix batter together well and then pour into prepared pan and bake for 30-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

If you like your cornbread a little on the sweet side, you might want to add more sugar into the batter. If you like your cornbread more on the savory side, you should be fine. If you like jalapenos, but you don’t like the heat, leave out the seeds! And again—you can use whatever cheese you like in this recipe. I used Colby cheese, which is a rather mild cheese. Sharp cheddar would taste really good in this as well!