Chili with “Personal-Pan” Cornbread

Sometimes new cooking nuances come to me in round-about ways.  Take this vegan chili — each serving is topped with its own “personal pan” cornbread.   I frequently serve cornbread with chili, but sometimes it’s just not convenient to heat the oven, let alone wait around while the cornbread bakes to be sure it doesn’t burn.

When I’m making chili in the slow cooker, I sometimes top the chili with cornbread batter and while I certainly could have done so this time, that’s when I got the idea to make little cornbread “cakes” instead.   I was inspired to make them based on the Black and Blue “Broundies” in my new book, Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker. “Broundies” is my name for round brownies — the brownie batter (made with black beans and blueberry jam) goes into 1-cup souffle cups or small individual springform pans.  They are then arranged inside a slow cooker and baked until done.

If it works for brownies, why not cornbread, I thought.  Indeed!  The result, as you can see in the photo is perilously close to looking elegant (as elegant as chili can look, anyway).  And it was so much fun to eat, too — a bite of cornbread with every bite of spicy chili. Yum!

The cornbread recipe itself is the Three-Corn Cornbread from the new slow cooker book.  The secret ingredient is a can of creamed corn (yes, creamed corn is vegan) and it gives the cornbread an incomparable rich corn flavor.

If you haven’t already done so… Be sure to enter the giveaway to win a copy of  The Blooming Platter Cookbook by Betsy DiJulio.  The contest closes on Sunday night!