66 thoughts on “P&Q: Savory Corn and Pepper Muffins”
Gosh, Dorie does it again! I made these last week, and they were phenomenal with a bowl of chili. If I had to do it over, though, I’d add more chili powder and pepper…we like things SPICY!
Yes, I think these would be perfect with chili. I’m planning on making them this weekend along with a vegetarian chili. Good to know they are good.
I think I may try these the more traditional route that Dorie writes about in her Playing Around. I love the fact these muffins have buttermilk in them..yum!
We had chili last weekend so I made these to go with it too! They are delicious and I even forgot to add the corn kernels.
Made these tonight with chili…they are quite tasty. I cut the recipe in half and ended up with 5 large muffins.
I made about 30 mini muffins using the Playing around method. They taste like little cornbread muffins.
Seems like everyone is on the chili kick! We’re having it tonight and I’ll be making the muffins!
Me too! I made a new chili recipe today and just took the muffins out of the oven. If you don’t like sweet corn muffins (I think Northerners prefer their corn muffins sweeter than down here) then I’d cut the sugar in half. I tasted the dry ingredients after I whisked them and I could tell the muffins would be too sweet for us. So I doubled the dry ingredients, divided the mixture in half (thank goodness for digital scales), and baked one recipe’s worth. So with half the sugar, they still have a hint of sweetness but it doesn’t ruin the muffins for me. They’re really good!
Nancy
The Dogs Eat the Crumbs
Michelle – after making these I was kicking myself for not making mini muffins – they would be perfect as small little bites! Can’t wait to see yours!
Oh, how funny we are. I too made chili to go with these guys. Freaking good.
I made chili, too! Can’t wait to see all of our posts this week. Just had them tonight, and they were very good. DH ate 3 with dinner!
I made these on New Year’s Day to go with my black-eyed pea soup, and they were terrific.
I’m planning on having these with chili this weekend! Does anyone have a great chili recipe they’d like to share?
I may be the only one who *didn’t* pair these with chili. I served them with a maple and chipotle roasted turkey breast, a simple spinach salad, and the leftover corn, bell pepper and cilantro sauteed in a bit of olive oil and seasoned with harissa. Yum!
Dolores-Oh.My.Word…That sounds heavenly!!!!! But what is harissa?
food.baby-here is the recipe for my slow cooker chili…
1 lb ground beef
1 onion
1 pepper (I use green)
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
2-29 ounce cans of tomato sauce
2 (14 or so ounces)cans of beans (you can use light or dark kidney beans, pinto beans, any beans you choose)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 packet of chili seasoning mix (hot or mild, depends on your preference)
Brown ground beef with onion and pepper, add garlic at last minute. Drain and put in slow cooker. Pour tomato sauce and beans into slow cooker. Add sugar and chili seasoning mix into slow cooker, stir until combined. Cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours. Garnish with tortilla chips, grated onion, cheddar cheese. Enjoy! (This chili freezes well.)
Whoops! Forgot to mention that onion or pepper can be diced or cut into larger chunks….just depends on your preference!
i made this recipe a while back for a family event and they were a hit. I’m going to make them again today to go along with vegetarian chili.
Mmm.. chili sounds good, as does Dolores’s menu! I’m thinking of making chipotle chicken and tomato soup.
I’ve made this recipe often, using variations such as adding diced, sauteed bell pepper, corn and black beans. I think it would be perfect with the corn muffins. I also like someone’s suggestion of doing mini muffins as I just bought a minimuffin pan after Christmas and haven’t used it yet.
Chipotle Chicken and Tomato Soup
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (15.5-ounce) can navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added stewed tomatoes
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce, finely chopped
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast (about 1/2 pound)
1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Partially mash tomatoes and beans with a potato masher. Stir in chicken; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat; stir in oil. Place 1 1/4 cups soup in each of four bowls. Top each serving with 2 tablespoons sour cream and 1 tablespoon cilantro.
Yield: 4 servings
CALORIES 325 (28% from fat); FAT 10g (sat 3.6g,mono 4.4g,poly 1.1g); IRON 3.1mg; CHOLESTEROL 58mg; CALCIUM 120mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.4g; SODIUM 741mg; PROTEIN 28.9g; FIBER 7.5g
From: Cooking Light
I hate to say it, but I think I am going to skip this week. I am a cornbread purist. Needs to be made in a skillet with no funny business. (no additions.) Cant wait to see everyone’s renditions of this recipe though!
Bake on!
Wow, lots of chili going around. I think I am going to serve these with chipotle lime honey glazed shrimp. Should be tasty.
Laurie – care to share your fav cornbread recipe? Just bought my first skillet! Shame I know.
Tania
I’m making these tonight to go with our beef stew – I can’t wait to try them!!
Jennifer – thanks for posting the soup recipe! Turns out I have that in my CL cookbook but I’ve never made it before. It is now on the list!!
L.W. Why not just put the mix in the skillet and make it a different type of cornbread. Bet that would work.
Jennifer – thanks for the soup recipe. Will try it soon – mayabe with the muffins this weekend.
JUJU sounds like a great chili recipe. Am tired of mine and was looking for something new.
Nancy – thank you for the advice on the sugar. Although I’m a Northerner, I don’t think I’d like these muffins if they were too sweet. I’ll try half the sugar and give them a taste.
All the sudden I am craving chili? haha
Tania! Love your shrimp idea – are you going to blog the recipe for that too??!! I hope? :)
My muffins are baking as we speak! And the smell of slow cooker black bean chili is melding with that baking aroma quite deliciously.
I can’t wait to make these. I’m weary of sweets and am craving something savory with a kick. Now I have to start looking through my many chili recipes. Or maybe huevos rancheros… By the way, Nancy, this Northerner definitely dislikes sweet corn muffins!
Actually, I like corn bread both ways, sweet and not sweet. But with spicy and savory ingredients, I thought less sweet would be better for these muffins. I added extra spice and heat and stirred in some chopped scallions (and cut the fat a bit). They were really delicious.
I made these with grilled hot dog wienies chopped and included. The kids loved them. I wanted to get a quick snack that wasn’t a simple hot dog. They now call them the corn dog muffins and they were awesome!
ok, I guess now I will have to make these with chili! I just made it this week…now why on EARTH didnt I make these then???? They look good, cant wait to try…total fan of buttermilk in baked goods.
This Northerner loves her corn muffins sweet ~~a la Jiffy mix~~
LOL I’m with you chocolatechic! I love sweet corn muffins. I haven’t found one from scratch yet that is better than Jiffy. I had one that came close, but still not better. I’m trying these, but not sure what to do. I was thinking of splitting the recipe into two separate batches and making one savory and then using the playing around instructions and making one sweeter. Hopefully that will work!
rats sorry, didn’t click the follow up comments box fast enough, that never used to be here! subbing.
Oh these were out of this world. We pulled the middle out of the muffin and filled it with chili! Oh it was so good!
Christine, that sounds delicious!
I made my last night with some crock pot black bean chili, and they were amazing, both plain and dipped in the chili. I baked them for about 17 minutes and they were perfect. Yum! Thanks for picking this recipe, I love it! The black pepper really adds something special.
Don’t worry Dolores – I’m making these @ the bf’s, and he doesn’t like chili (I know, I know!). They’ll be a nice change from my ggma’s cornbread – sweet, Northern style :)
Amanda: here’s my favorite cornbread recipe – can be sweet or less sweet depending on how much honey you use.
I don’t know if it’s better than Jiffy (!) but I’ve always liked how mellow and moist it is.
Civilized Cornbread
from Sunset magazine’s Favorite Recipes vol II
1 c yellow cornmeal
1 c biscuit mix
2 eggs
1 c milk
1/3 c honey (I use 1/6 c honey, 1/6 c yogurt)
4 T melted butter
mix dry ingreds, mix wet ingreds, combine mixtures stirring just until moistened. Bake in 8” square pan at 400 for 25 minutes.
I’m sure this could be made as muffins, too.
If I want to halve the recipe, how would I go about 1 egg yolk without actually taking a yolk and cutting it in half? I know how to cut a regular egg in half by subbing oil, water, and baking powder. I was debating on using just oil, but I don’t know if that would work.
Carla – I read in one of my mags that you should just use 1 egg as called for in a whole recipe. . Maybe cut down 1/8 cup of other liquid.
OMG, these were delicious! Especially combined with the chili con carne! Yum!!
I made these today and loved them! :) So good! We went the traditional route though. Spicy doesn’t like me!
These were yummy! I served them with a lentil and sausage soup. I didn’t make them too spicy as I wanted the kids to eat them. They did, we did…I think I will try them again with…chili!!
Thank you for the recipes ladies!
As for this one, I thought it was ok, but my family didn’t like them. One bite and they grimaced. SIGH I’m positive I did everything right, but who knows. Oh well.
They are in the oven now.
Carla, I guess you could find the smallest large egg? That’s what I do sometimes!
I like my cornbread sweet too…I think it makes the spicy chili taste that much better!
ARR. I thought I could make this but I have no corn meal!
Carla, I make the Corniest Corn Muffin recipe all the time, which also calls for 1 egg + 1 yolk, and when I halve the recipe, I just use one whole large egg. I’ve never had any problems.
Nancy-The title of the cornbread cracked me up….”Civilized Cornbread!” LOL
I made mine with red pepper-tomato soup (I improved on a boxed soup I bought at Trader Joe’s: the leftover corn and red pepper, some noodles, garlic and a scoop of pesto), and it was spectacular!
In the oven now! Can’t wait!
Nancy – Thanks for the tip re: the sugar. My parents are from the south so our family is used to the ‘unsweetened’ variety. I think I’ll cut it in half. I’m going to start making these as soon as I get back from the store.
My family and I just ate these. Pretty good! I served ours with beans and fideo.
I love my cornbread sweet. I usually add a lot of sugar to my recipe! Bad, but so good.
These were great, so spicy and flavorful. Next time, I might split them in half and throw them on the grill for a couple minutes, just to give them a bit of smoke. Then slather with butter while they’re still warm….
Like many of you, I paired mine with black bean chili (my favorite recipe is vegetarian from Greens cookbook). As I mentioned in my blog, I added chipotle chili to the muffins. Really smokin’! This is my first official post…thanks to all of you who have welcomed me to the group!
I was all set to say what a terrible disappointment this was- dry and crumbly- and then I tried one again about 5 hours later. Strangely enough it really melded together. I am still not loving either the taste or the texture though and I really think that the small size of European bio eggs means that I should either double the eggs or just throw the whole thing in next time. That and perhaps my chili powder was stale- it’s not available here and I generally use harissa instead so my spice is almost two years old. I liked the corn additive, though.
Did you use stone-ground corn meal? I only used half (the rest regular) and I really think that it might have been too dry, crumbly and crunchy if I had used all stone ground.
I’m getting kind of a late start, but if anyone could help me with this question that’d be great. I already have some self-rising cornmeal mix, so if I used it would I omit the baking powder/soda? I’m trying to avoid having brick-like muffins but don’t really know much about baking chemistry.
Cynthia- you are right. That’s the only cornmeal I have-painfully hand carried over from the States, and it was too crumbly, dry and crunchy.
Hi everyone,
Thank you all so much for having me. I had this book for such a long time – shamefully never got around to using it. I am so happy that I found this group. The recipe this week was really good. It was a very good change from something sweet. I posted and feel free to check it out….. http://kitchenadventures-spice.blogspot.com
Great muffins, only I made the ones on the previous page! OOPS! So, just incase you were wondering, the corniest corn muffins are indeed incredible! Went well with the chili, looks like lots of us are dining on chili tonite!
Here’s another Northerner who likes sweet cornbread. Even though they looked really great out of the oven, we didn’t care at all for the taste of them.
If you want to add smokey/spice flavor, I highly recommend chipotle adobo sauce. Just pick up a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and add a few spoonfuls to the batter. MMMMMMM!! !
*This web site is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you’ll definitely discover it.
Tuesdays with Dorie 
Gosh, Dorie does it again! I made these last week, and they were phenomenal with a bowl of chili. If I had to do it over, though, I’d add more chili powder and pepper…we like things SPICY!
Yes, I think these would be perfect with chili. I’m planning on making them this weekend along with a vegetarian chili. Good to know they are good.
I think I may try these the more traditional route that Dorie writes about in her Playing Around. I love the fact these muffins have buttermilk in them..yum!
We had chili last weekend so I made these to go with it too! They are delicious and I even forgot to add the corn kernels.
Made these tonight with chili…they are quite tasty. I cut the recipe in half and ended up with 5 large muffins.
I made about 30 mini muffins using the Playing around method. They taste like little cornbread muffins.
Seems like everyone is on the chili kick! We’re having it tonight and I’ll be making the muffins!
Me too! I made a new chili recipe today and just took the muffins out of the oven. If you don’t like sweet corn muffins (I think Northerners prefer their corn muffins sweeter than down here) then I’d cut the sugar in half. I tasted the dry ingredients after I whisked them and I could tell the muffins would be too sweet for us. So I doubled the dry ingredients, divided the mixture in half (thank goodness for digital scales), and baked one recipe’s worth. So with half the sugar, they still have a hint of sweetness but it doesn’t ruin the muffins for me. They’re really good!
Nancy
The Dogs Eat the Crumbs
Michelle – after making these I was kicking myself for not making mini muffins – they would be perfect as small little bites! Can’t wait to see yours!
Oh, how funny we are. I too made chili to go with these guys. Freaking good.
I made chili, too! Can’t wait to see all of our posts this week. Just had them tonight, and they were very good. DH ate 3 with dinner!
I made these on New Year’s Day to go with my black-eyed pea soup, and they were terrific.
I’m planning on having these with chili this weekend! Does anyone have a great chili recipe they’d like to share?
I may be the only one who *didn’t* pair these with chili. I served them with a maple and chipotle roasted turkey breast, a simple spinach salad, and the leftover corn, bell pepper and cilantro sauteed in a bit of olive oil and seasoned with harissa. Yum!
Dolores-Oh.My.Word…That sounds heavenly!!!!! But what is harissa?
food.baby-here is the recipe for my slow cooker chili…
1 lb ground beef
1 onion
1 pepper (I use green)
2 cloves of garlic, pressed
2-29 ounce cans of tomato sauce
2 (14 or so ounces)cans of beans (you can use light or dark kidney beans, pinto beans, any beans you choose)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 packet of chili seasoning mix (hot or mild, depends on your preference)
Brown ground beef with onion and pepper, add garlic at last minute. Drain and put in slow cooker. Pour tomato sauce and beans into slow cooker. Add sugar and chili seasoning mix into slow cooker, stir until combined. Cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4 hours. Garnish with tortilla chips, grated onion, cheddar cheese. Enjoy! (This chili freezes well.)
Whoops! Forgot to mention that onion or pepper can be diced or cut into larger chunks….just depends on your preference!
i made this recipe a while back for a family event and they were a hit. I’m going to make them again today to go along with vegetarian chili.
here’s the veggie chili recipe i’m using: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-food-fast-with-family-circle/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html
Mmm.. chili sounds good, as does Dolores’s menu! I’m thinking of making chipotle chicken and tomato soup.
I’ve made this recipe often, using variations such as adding diced, sauteed bell pepper, corn and black beans. I think it would be perfect with the corn muffins. I also like someone’s suggestion of doing mini muffins as I just bought a minimuffin pan after Christmas and haven’t used it yet.
Chipotle Chicken and Tomato Soup
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (15.5-ounce) can navy beans, rinsed and drained
1 (14.5-ounce) can no-salt-added stewed tomatoes
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
1 chipotle chile, canned in adobo sauce, finely chopped
2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast (about 1/2 pound)
1 tablespoon extravirgin olive oil
1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Combine first 5 ingredients in a large saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Partially mash tomatoes and beans with a potato masher. Stir in chicken; cook 2 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat; stir in oil. Place 1 1/4 cups soup in each of four bowls. Top each serving with 2 tablespoons sour cream and 1 tablespoon cilantro.
Yield: 4 servings
CALORIES 325 (28% from fat); FAT 10g (sat 3.6g,mono 4.4g,poly 1.1g); IRON 3.1mg; CHOLESTEROL 58mg; CALCIUM 120mg; CARBOHYDRATE 30.4g; SODIUM 741mg; PROTEIN 28.9g; FIBER 7.5g
From: Cooking Light
I hate to say it, but I think I am going to skip this week. I am a cornbread purist. Needs to be made in a skillet with no funny business. (no additions.) Cant wait to see everyone’s renditions of this recipe though!
Bake on!
Wow, lots of chili going around. I think I am going to serve these with chipotle lime honey glazed shrimp. Should be tasty.
Laurie – care to share your fav cornbread recipe? Just bought my first skillet! Shame I know.
Tania
I’m making these tonight to go with our beef stew – I can’t wait to try them!!
Jennifer – thanks for posting the soup recipe! Turns out I have that in my CL cookbook but I’ve never made it before. It is now on the list!!
L.W. Why not just put the mix in the skillet and make it a different type of cornbread. Bet that would work.
Jennifer – thanks for the soup recipe. Will try it soon – mayabe with the muffins this weekend.
JUJU sounds like a great chili recipe. Am tired of mine and was looking for something new.
Nancy – thank you for the advice on the sugar. Although I’m a Northerner, I don’t think I’d like these muffins if they were too sweet. I’ll try half the sugar and give them a taste.
All the sudden I am craving chili? haha
Tania! Love your shrimp idea – are you going to blog the recipe for that too??!! I hope? :)
My muffins are baking as we speak! And the smell of slow cooker black bean chili is melding with that baking aroma quite deliciously.
I can’t wait to make these. I’m weary of sweets and am craving something savory with a kick. Now I have to start looking through my many chili recipes. Or maybe huevos rancheros… By the way, Nancy, this Northerner definitely dislikes sweet corn muffins!
Actually, I like corn bread both ways, sweet and not sweet. But with spicy and savory ingredients, I thought less sweet would be better for these muffins. I added extra spice and heat and stirred in some chopped scallions (and cut the fat a bit). They were really delicious.
I made these with grilled hot dog wienies chopped and included. The kids loved them. I wanted to get a quick snack that wasn’t a simple hot dog. They now call them the corn dog muffins and they were awesome!
ok, I guess now I will have to make these with chili! I just made it this week…now why on EARTH didnt I make these then???? They look good, cant wait to try…total fan of buttermilk in baked goods.
This Northerner loves her corn muffins sweet ~~a la Jiffy mix~~
LOL I’m with you chocolatechic! I love sweet corn muffins. I haven’t found one from scratch yet that is better than Jiffy. I had one that came close, but still not better. I’m trying these, but not sure what to do. I was thinking of splitting the recipe into two separate batches and making one savory and then using the playing around instructions and making one sweeter. Hopefully that will work!
rats sorry, didn’t click the follow up comments box fast enough, that never used to be here! subbing.
Oh these were out of this world. We pulled the middle out of the muffin and filled it with chili! Oh it was so good!
Christine, that sounds delicious!
I made my last night with some crock pot black bean chili, and they were amazing, both plain and dipped in the chili. I baked them for about 17 minutes and they were perfect. Yum! Thanks for picking this recipe, I love it! The black pepper really adds something special.
Don’t worry Dolores – I’m making these @ the bf’s, and he doesn’t like chili (I know, I know!). They’ll be a nice change from my ggma’s cornbread – sweet, Northern style :)
Amanda: here’s my favorite cornbread recipe – can be sweet or less sweet depending on how much honey you use.
I don’t know if it’s better than Jiffy (!) but I’ve always liked how mellow and moist it is.
Civilized Cornbread
from Sunset magazine’s Favorite Recipes vol II
1 c yellow cornmeal
1 c biscuit mix
2 eggs
1 c milk
1/3 c honey (I use 1/6 c honey, 1/6 c yogurt)
4 T melted butter
mix dry ingreds, mix wet ingreds, combine mixtures stirring just until moistened. Bake in 8” square pan at 400 for 25 minutes.
I’m sure this could be made as muffins, too.
If I want to halve the recipe, how would I go about 1 egg yolk without actually taking a yolk and cutting it in half? I know how to cut a regular egg in half by subbing oil, water, and baking powder. I was debating on using just oil, but I don’t know if that would work.
Carla – I read in one of my mags that you should just use 1 egg as called for in a whole recipe. . Maybe cut down 1/8 cup of other liquid.
OMG, these were delicious! Especially combined with the chili con carne! Yum!!
I made these today and loved them! :) So good! We went the traditional route though. Spicy doesn’t like me!
These were yummy! I served them with a lentil and sausage soup. I didn’t make them too spicy as I wanted the kids to eat them. They did, we did…I think I will try them again with…chili!!
Thank you for the recipes ladies!
As for this one, I thought it was ok, but my family didn’t like them. One bite and they grimaced. SIGH I’m positive I did everything right, but who knows. Oh well.
They are in the oven now.
Carla, I guess you could find the smallest large egg? That’s what I do sometimes!
I like my cornbread sweet too…I think it makes the spicy chili taste that much better!
ARR. I thought I could make this but I have no corn meal!
Carla, I make the Corniest Corn Muffin recipe all the time, which also calls for 1 egg + 1 yolk, and when I halve the recipe, I just use one whole large egg. I’ve never had any problems.
Nancy-The title of the cornbread cracked me up….”Civilized Cornbread!” LOL
I made mine with red pepper-tomato soup (I improved on a boxed soup I bought at Trader Joe’s: the leftover corn and red pepper, some noodles, garlic and a scoop of pesto), and it was spectacular!
In the oven now! Can’t wait!
Nancy – Thanks for the tip re: the sugar. My parents are from the south so our family is used to the ‘unsweetened’ variety. I think I’ll cut it in half. I’m going to start making these as soon as I get back from the store.
My family and I just ate these. Pretty good! I served ours with beans and fideo.
I love my cornbread sweet. I usually add a lot of sugar to my recipe! Bad, but so good.
Just posted mine … http://kuyaskitchen.blogspot.com/
These were great, so spicy and flavorful. Next time, I might split them in half and throw them on the grill for a couple minutes, just to give them a bit of smoke. Then slather with butter while they’re still warm….
Like many of you, I paired mine with black bean chili (my favorite recipe is vegetarian from Greens cookbook). As I mentioned in my blog, I added chipotle chili to the muffins. Really smokin’! This is my first official post…thanks to all of you who have welcomed me to the group!
I was all set to say what a terrible disappointment this was- dry and crumbly- and then I tried one again about 5 hours later. Strangely enough it really melded together. I am still not loving either the taste or the texture though and I really think that the small size of European bio eggs means that I should either double the eggs or just throw the whole thing in next time. That and perhaps my chili powder was stale- it’s not available here and I generally use harissa instead so my spice is almost two years old. I liked the corn additive, though.
Did you use stone-ground corn meal? I only used half (the rest regular) and I really think that it might have been too dry, crumbly and crunchy if I had used all stone ground.
I’m getting kind of a late start, but if anyone could help me with this question that’d be great. I already have some self-rising cornmeal mix, so if I used it would I omit the baking powder/soda? I’m trying to avoid having brick-like muffins but don’t really know much about baking chemistry.
Cynthia- you are right. That’s the only cornmeal I have-painfully hand carried over from the States, and it was too crumbly, dry and crunchy.
Hi everyone,
Thank you all so much for having me. I had this book for such a long time – shamefully never got around to using it. I am so happy that I found this group. The recipe this week was really good. It was a very good change from something sweet. I posted and feel free to check it out….. http://kitchenadventures-spice.blogspot.com
Great muffins, only I made the ones on the previous page! OOPS! So, just incase you were wondering, the corniest corn muffins are indeed incredible! Went well with the chili, looks like lots of us are dining on chili tonite!
Here’s another Northerner who likes sweet cornbread. Even though they looked really great out of the oven, we didn’t care at all for the taste of them.
If you want to add smokey/spice flavor, I highly recommend chipotle adobo sauce. Just pick up a can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and add a few spoonfuls to the batter. MMMMMMM!! !
*This web site is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you’ll definitely discover it.