trsinc, this is a recipe I'd saved from somewhere and I haven't tried yet. The proportions seem very similar to your recipe, if you sub white whole wheat for all purpose in yours. The real difference is the sour cream, which could make a moister muffin and it might be an addition that you want to try.

However, in place of the sour cream I'd use lowfat yogurt, I make my own but store stuff is fine, or you can get lowfat sour cream, and I'd use skim milk. I think you could cut the butter in half and add applesauce and the sugar is entirely negotiable in my opinion. Leave it in, cut it down or take it out, if you use applesauce you probably won't need it.

Whole Wheat & Flax Cornbread Muffins

- 1 cup white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 2 Tbsp ground flaxseed
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1/2 cup milk (1/2 C is an estimate, start with that then add a little more if the batter is super thickthe flax and the whole wheat threw off my original recipe, which called for only 1/3 C milk)
- 1/4 cup butter, melted

Mix together dry ingredients. Whisk together wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add to dry ingredients and mix until moistened. Fill 12 lined or greased muffin cups with batter. Bake at 400 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

After you make all those changes, it'll be an entirely different recipe, LOL, but I still think it could work.

Annie

Yet one more recipe. This one is from Bob's Red Mill.

1 c. cornmeal (I use freshly milled)
1 c. soft white whole wheat flour (hard wheat will also work - I mill and use both for cornbread without a problem)
1/2 t. salt
4 t. baking powder
1 T. sugar (I use agave nectar, but both are optional, but aids in browning)
1 egg
1 c. milk (I use homemade kefir)
1/4 c. butter, softened (I use 2 T. coconut oil)
(optional: I also add 2 T. flaxmeal)

Mix dry ingredients into bowl.

Add egg, milk and butter. Beat (by hand) until smooth, about 1-minute. DO NOT OVERBEAT.

Bake in a greased 8-inch square pan for 20-25 minutes at 425°F.

Grainlady Note: I also use freshly-milled spelt instead of whole wheat flour. I often substitute 1/4 c. flour with 1/4 c. High-Maize Resistant Starch to increase the fiber and lower the glycemic impact.

-Grainlady

How about going savoury instead of sweet? Add some whole kernel corn, jalapeno pepper and cheddar cheese to your basic recipe.

I almost always make my cornbread with whole wheat PASTRY flour, because I LIKE it, I like the "rustic" texture it adds to things. You can sub splenda for sugar in cornbread, that's what I do if I know I'm going to eat it up relatively quickly. I'm one of those people who thinks splenda is best in things that get eaten right way because if not I think it develops a chemical taste in foods over time. I have never made cornbread with applesauce, but that's a way to add the moistness sugar adds to things but less sweet. But still sweet. I like a middle of the road type cornbread, not sweet but not completely sugarless either, so I would probably like it with applesauce. My recipe calls for sour cream except I use non-fat plain yogurt with just as good results. I also use two egg whites instead of one egg.

Sourcream (or yogurt) Cornmeal muffins

1 cup unbleached white flour
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup fine yellow cornmeal
1/8 cup Splenda baking mix (or 1/4 cup sugar)
3 tsp. baking powder
scant 1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
1/2 tsp. baking soda added to yogurt
2 egg whites

I entered this recipe in my recipe box on "SparkPeople" (check it out, it is GREAT for recipe and meal planning ideas). It's OK to join, they won't send you a bunch of junk mail. The stats on it are:

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 91.9
Total Fat: 0.5 g
Cholesterol: 0.3 mg
Sodium: 23.8 mg
Total Carbs: 18.2 g
Dietary Fiber: 1.1 g
Protein: 3.0

Kinda low on fiber and high on carbs so you could improve it by subbing whole wheat flour for all or some of the white flour. I'd start out with half and half and move up as my tastebuds adjusted. Also could possibly reduce salt, but I can't vouch for that part since I have never made it that way. I've done it with at least half WWH flour though. I eat these muffins with spreadable "lite" butter, which you might want to look into since it is a mix of sat. and unsat. fat.

Also, here's my recipe for lima beans, which I have served at a couple of potlucks and people have said they liked them.

Elegant Lima Beans
4 cups cooked lima beans (I use the green baby limas, the frozen ones, but I'll bet this would be good with the white butter bean limas too. I've seen both green limas and butter beans sold canned some places. I just cooked up a batch of dry limas for the first time last year and I really liked them. I make my beans in the crockpot.)
1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
4 oz. shredded lowfat, lowsalt swiss cheese. Frankly I actually use jarlsburg swiss for this, or kasseri cheese, but both of those are high salt high fat cheeses.
1 - 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (I use the lower amount, walnuts are high in calories and fat. I'll bet you could even go down to 2/3 cup on those.)
1/4 tsp. dried basil, crumbled, (or maybe a little more, depends on how you feel about basil, I love it)
1 green pepper, diced (I also sometimes add a small diced zuchinni, which you can also add or sub. for the green pepper since some people don't like peppers. Can also use celery if you like it. Start with what you know you will like though. The additional veggies add more good fiber but I guess you could leave them out if you hate those green veggies.)
3/4 cup water or veg. broth, unsalted if possible
1/2 tsp. salt (you could experiment with less, I almost always use less than the recipe calls for, or even omit because canned tomato sauce has salt in it. I get unsalted veg. broth bouillon cubes in the health food section of Wegman's, but if you can't find unsalted broth, then use water or leave out additional salt.)
1/4 tsp. pepper
minced parsley to garnish

Combine cooked or defrosted limas, vegetables, tomato sauce and water or broth. Simmer 10-15 min. until vegetables are just starting to get tender. Mix in shredded cheese and walnuts, and bake in 350 degree oven for 30 min. Notes: You can toast the walnuts in the oven as it is preheating before adding them to the casserole, but watch them carefully so they don't burn. Usually about 8 min. in the oven at 300 is enough to toast. I hardly ever had fresh parsley so I stir in about 1-2 tsp. dried parsley to the stew before putting it in the oven.

Oy, I forgot to add that you have to pour the lima bean mixture into an oiled casserole dish. Also, make sure the veggies are cooked through before putting in the oven. The oven part is just to make everything hot and bubbly with the cheese. You could also top this casserole with some italian seasoned bread crumbs, depending on what else you were serving. I'd mix them with a smidge olive oil so they would get nice and brown and crusty. This is great with cornbread, but I also serve it with either whole wheat pita or crusty whole wheat bread served with eggplant/roasted red pepper spread, which is a GREAT lowfat spread/dip, if you like eggplant. Just roast a lightly oiled peeled eggplant sliced into slabs at least 1 inch thick, and mix it in the food processor with a small jar of roasted red pepper and a little S&P and a clove or two of roasted garlic if you like that. You can serve it on high fiber wasa crackers too, if you can tolerate those. I use a pastry brush or paper towel to put the olive oil on the eggplant, so I don't use too much.

Thanks everybody. I'm going to try all three. Skeip did it with the cheese, lol. So, tonight I'm making it Mexican style with peppers, onion, and cheese. Thanks, Skeip, I wasn't even thinking Mexican. I'm out of yogurt so I'm still going to add some applesauce and see what happens. We like the Mexican style cornbread to be more moist and cakey than regular.

lpink, I'll have to be on the look out for whole wheat pastry flour now. I might like that better than the regular whole wheat in many things. I love whole grain peasant breads but some things just require a more refined texture - for me. Thanks for mentioning it. And thanks for that lima bean recipe!! We love limas so much we just eat them in a bowl, sometimes with chard or mustard greens, and hot sauce. I love the sound of that casserole/stew. YUM. That's going on the menu for next Thursday.

grainlady, I just received the book Country Beans that you recommended to me. That's a great book! I can't wait to start experimenting!

It seems like most whole wheat flour sold in the stores is more or less whole wheat pastry flour (maybe Grainlady can chime in here) but there seems to be quite a difference between brands, but I don't know why. I have long been a fan of Bob's Red Mill brand products. I'm probably not a good person to give advice on whole wheat though, since I have always loved it, even as a little kid. The more texture the better for me. I actually prefer it to white in most circumstances, but then I'm one of those tofu eating brown rice, granola bar type gals, lol!

You could sub any kind of greens for the green pepper in that stew. Anyway I like it as is, but I know some people cannot eat peppers. You can also use lowfat feta as a type of cheese too I forgot to add. It's basically kind of a mediterranean riff on limas, so I mix and match with different ingredients depending on what I have on hand and what else I'm serving.

I love limas too, which is something that has hit me in old age, because as a kid I could barely stomache them. They are a food that has grown on me. I think I disliked them as a kid because mom served them plain, so they seemed kind of dry to me. But they take well to a lot of different seasonings and sauces.

lpinkmountain -

I can comment on King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour because I happen use the same wheat for milling they use for that product, and it's NOT pastry flour. The protein of the wheat runs at least 13%. My last bags of wheat were 13.1%. The mill outside of town where I purchase the hard white winter wheat mills KA White Whole Wheat for this region. It makes great 100% whole wheat bread and I never add vital wheat gluten.

Commercial "pastry" whole wheat flour has less gluten, so you get a tender crumb in cornbread. You'll get a more mild flavor if you use white wheat instead of red wheat, and most commercial whole wheat flour is milled from red wheat.

The grind of cornmeal also makes a huge difference in cornbread. You'll get a completely different crumb using a coarse grind than a fine grind, and it also comes in medium grind (I believe Bob's Red Mill has different grinds).

If you were to use KA White Whole Wheat Flour, just keep mixing to a minimum so you don't develop too much gluten in the flour, or add a little more fat (which coats the gluten to "shorten" it). Spelt has less gluten than whole wheat pastry flour, so it makes a very tender crumb. I also use half white whole wheat and half rye flour for cornbread. The whole grain flour in cornbread is a good way to use up freshly-milled flour "leftovers" after baking day, because I can add almost anything for that 1-cup of flour.
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trsinc - Hope you enjoy "Country Beans" as much as I have. I'm making Creamy Cabbage Soup (pg. 92) for lunch today.

-Grainlady

I have a book called The Cornbread Gospels that has just about every variation on cornbread that you could imagine. This particular recipe piqued my interest because it calls for whole wheat pastry flour and apple cider syrup. I haven't tried it yet, but it's in my recipe bucket list.

I would type out the recipe, but Google Books has the entire page scanned -- much better since this includes tips and how to make your own Apple Cider Syrup (or you can buy it at The Country Store and Gardens).

Tamara

Oh gosh, Tamara, I love that froggy rain hat and matching umbrella, what a cool website!

L, I'm not a tofu loving granola eating hippie type, but I do like whole wheat way better than any of the white stuff. Hmmm.....maybe I'm a closet health food kind of person? LOL

Annie