Cornbread Intensified

Here is another fantastic recipe with dates…(and bacon). Who knew these sweet little gems could be so versatile? I went to the market, bought some dates and bacon and knew I had to bake them into something, but what? Bread came to mind. After a little experimenting and researching, I adapted this dated New York Times recipe (circa when-we-used-to-jot-down-ingredients-with-pencil-and-paper) into my own cornbread with salty bacon, chewy dates and a sweet maple syrup swirl. We may use different writing utensils today, but eating utensils remain the same. Open wide. Dig in.

Maple Swirl Bacon Date Cornbread

1 cup flour

3/4 cup white or yellow cornmeal

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup milk

2 tbsp vegetable oil

6-8 strips of bacon chopped

1/2 cup dates chopped

2 tbsp real maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, oil, milk and sugar. Blend the dry ingredients with the egg mixture then fold in the bacon and dates. Pour into a 5″ x 7″ bread pan. Now, this is the tricky part, drizzle the maple syrup on top of the dough, use a knife or small spatula and swirl into dough lightly folding. Don’t mix it, but swirl into the dough so that you can still see the syrup. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Slice, butter and eat.