Erin's Kitchen....Daryl's version of cornbread

So I bought this Marie Calendar (sp?) cornbread mix a while ago at BJ's. Cornbread goes great with chili! I just so happened to make chili on Tuesday night and put several containers in the fridge for Daryl to eat all week for lunch if he so desires and for dinner one night. That night was tonight!

So Daryl decided to "help out" and make cornbread. Daryl's version of help and my version of help are very different. I told Daryl to read the directions carefully. All 4 steps. I know, there are a lot! I walked into the kitchen about 3 minutes later to see Daryl randomly dumping cornbread mix into a huge bowl filled with about 6 cups of water.

I asked Daryl what he was doing. He said "Making cornbread!" with a 5 year old's grin. I asked him how many cups of mix he had already measured. He said that he wasn't measuring, he was just kind of pouring it in. I asked how much he needed to pour in and he looked at me with a puzzled look like I had asked a middle school drop out how a magnesium strip reacts when put into hydrochloric acid. The poor kid.

I then had him dump the mixture into the trash.

I had to teach Daryl what measuring cups are and how they are used. So now he understood steps 1 and 2. Determine how much you want to make, measure the water and measure the cornbread. Step 3 is a doozy! Step 3 tells you that you have to gently mix the cornbread mix and water to remove any lumps, but only to do about 20 strokes and not to over stir. As I was pre-heating the oven (another step forgotten) and preparing the chili for us, Daryl kept vigorously stirring the cornbread mixture. Again, step 3 was....stir, about 20 strokes, do not over stir. Daryl kept wanting to add stuff to the mixture. Cheese, honey, milk, etc. I explained to him that baking was a science and that we could add things once it was done, but that he really should just leave it alone for now.

Then, I don't know if he expected to put the mixing bowl in the half-way heated oven, or what he was planning on doing, but I had to remind him to get the 8X8 casserole dish and lube it up for the cornbread mixture. The mixture slid right out, smooth and silky, just as it shouldn't have been.

I asked Daryl how long it had to bake. He said he didn't know and set the oven timer for an hour. An hour? Really? Step 4 - find out how long you have to bake it. I readjusted the time for 32 minutes.

I then whipped up some honey butter and 32 minutes later, we enjoyed some very compacted and cakey cornbread with honey butter and a hot bowl of chili. Perfect food for a 93 degree day, right?