Sweet Corn Souffle, Summer Gatherings and A Love Affair

Don’t be fooled by the photo.

The recipe for that delicious monstrosity is something you will most certainly not find in either Summer Gatherings or A Love Affair with Southern Cooking. It merely seemed appropriate to include this Sweet Corn Souffle here because stickeningly sweet corn in bread-ish form is both summery and southern.

The fact is, you wouldn’t find a recipe for Sweet Corn Souffle in any real cookbook, for how could any self-respecting chef/food expert/cookbook author take instructions on the back of a box of dry mix and publish it as a “recipe” for birthday cake, pancakes, cornbread or otherwise?

Oh, wait. Sandra Lee does that.

Then again, I did say “respect.”

Now before we get into my strange love-hate-love-hate-hate-hate relationship with the whole Semi-ho Made philosophy that surrounds the Femme Faux-tale of the Food Network, let’s give away two cookbooks with legitimate recipes…

The Randomizer went all kinds of crazy and picked #3 sarah carrico for Summer Gatherings, then #19 donut for A Love Affair with Southern Cooking! sarah carrico and donut, congratulations, and would you both please email me with your mailing addresses so I can get the books sent out to you?

** An aside: I still haven’t heard from Maggie, the winner of the Sweet Melissa Baking Book! Maggie, if you still want the book, please email me with your mailing address and leave a comment here so I know to make sure your email doesn’t get canned into Spam. **

Now, back to the blonde, bubble-headed Barbie doll of a woman whose body couldn’t possibly absorb a single molecule of the fat and calorie-laden “food” she “cooks” in front of the camera. On the one hand, the Semi-ho is everything a food lover would hate. Buy everything and fake like you made it. On the other hand, who doesn’t love a woman who matches her Chanel-quilted headband to her JV-cheerleader-too-tight deep V-neck cashmere sweater to her apron to the drapes in her “kitchen” to the tiled backsplash and down to her appliances?!?! And when she goes all pink, you know she means business.

I will say that as much as I am not fond of Sandra Lee, I do appreciate the philosophy of semi-homemade. Life moves pretty fast, and there are times when you just have to resort to using the $0.69 box of Jiffy cornbread mix because you don’t have time to grow corn in your backyard, harvest the corn, shuck it, cut it, dry it, and do whatever else you’re supposed to do to make cornmeal.

So I didn’t actually even cheat. It wasn’t like I was going to make cornbread and was forced to use a mix out of convenience in the last minute. I actually have a recipe for this Sweet Corn Souffle that specifically calls for the boxed mix as one of the ingredients. I am not quite sure why it’s called a “souffle,” as there is absolutely nothing souffle-ish about this sour cream-heavy cake hy-bread. Maybe it’s the eggs, though they aren’t even separated and beaten. Everything is dumped into a bowl, combined and baked.

When I make it, I almost feel a little dirty.

But only until it cools and I eat it.

Sarah J. Gim · June 11, 2008 · 12 comments

Tagged as: american cooking, casseroles, cookbooks, cooking, corn, devil bakes frauda, giveaways, side dishes