For several days this week, I found myself craving cornbread. I’m not sure where the craving came from, but I suspect it came from the menu at a restaurant we ate at last weekend. The restaurant, Maya, is here in Charlottesville and they offer a long list of sides that come with each entrée. I didn’t choose cornbread that night for dinner, but seeing it listed must have made me want it anyway.

I like my cornbread sweet and usually don’t make it as sweet as I want it. As a result, I think I use a different recipe every single time I bake it. This time I used a Mark Bittman recipe that I found online. Bittman’s recipes usually turn out great for me and the recipe touted itself as “easy and forgiving,” which is exactly what I was after for weeknight baking. The recipe also called for a flexible amount of sugar, so I figured that gave me a little wiggle room for making it extra sweet.

And just to mix things up, I threw in some frozen blueberries. It sounds kind of weird, but I had tried blueberry cornbread before, so I knew it was a good combo. Plus I have a LOT of frozen blueberries to go through in the next handful of months.

For the blueberries, I used a trick I learned from a Martha Stewart blueberry muffins recipe. Toss the blueberries in a little bit of flour before adding them to the batter. When you do this, the blueberries don’t sink to the bottom!

The original recipe called for 1/4 to 1/2 cup of sugar. I used the 1/4 cup of sugar and then added a 1/3 cup of honey. If you don’t like your cornbread as sweet as I do, use just a 1/4 cup of sugar.

Cornbread!

Blueberry Cornbread

Recipe slightly adapted from a NY Times Recipe of the Day by Mark Bittman

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
• 1/2 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, plus 1 tablespoon for blueberries
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups milk, more if needed
• 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Put butter in an 8-inch square baking pan. Place pan in oven.
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix honey and eggs into milk, then stir this mixture into dry ingredients, combining with a few swift strokes. If mixture seems dry, add another tablespoon or two of milk.
3. In a small bowl, toss blueberries with one tablespoon flour (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the batter while baking). Gently fold blueberries into cornbread batter.
4. When butter in pan has melted and the oven is hot, remove pan from oven, pour batter into it and smooth out top. Return pan to oven.
5. Bake about 30 minutes, until top is lightly browned and sides have pulled away from pan; a toothpick inserted into center will come out clean. Serve warm.