As-Good-As-It-Gets Corn Dogs

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The other day I was reading Christine's Maman and Gourmand, formally The Mistress of Cakes, post detailing yet another one of her fabulous creations centered around the theme of junk food. This one in particular involved corn dogs. Brilliant! I love corn dogs. Now, I will confess on my blog, and have done so many times in the past, that I often do use "store bought" pre-packaged foods (shudder) for quick fixes! Think no further back then to pie crusts and pizza. Corn dogs is another one.

Well, since I have been on a roll (have made my own pie crust as of late and pizza, too), I was very eager to try Christine's corn dog recipe. It looked like the perfect kid-friendly special occasion food and my other two favorite qualifiers, CHEAP and EASY to make.  Now corn dogs, in and of themselves, are not really all that special, if you take them out of a box and nuke them or throw them in the oven, but homemade ones...? Well, that had all the kids intrigued.

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For my corn dogs, I used Texas brand dogs,  Heartbrand's Akaushu Beef Hot Dogs.  I had never tried them before and they looked perfect for corn dogs, plus they were on sale for $1.43!  I made up the corn dog batter as described in Christine's post, but halved it, since I was only making six corn dogs, and I also added in a  little more sugar, like double, to ensure it was sweet enough for the kids (Okay, for me), but it worked out perfectly!  I used bamboo sticks, instead of Popsicle sticks, because I already had them lying around (do not recommend them, stick with Popsicle, less dangerous and perfect gripping size). Then, I speared my dogs and rolled them in the batter. I continued swirling until I placed them in the frying pan. I actually used my Le Creuset cast iron skillet (Christmas gift from hubby) to fry these babies up. I filled my pan about half way with corn oil and allowed it to preheat on medium heat while I prepared the batter and dogs.  Then, I turned down the heat to a "high low" or "low medium" heat to ensure the batter would not be melted off.

Let me tell you, although they do not fry pretty, homemade corn dogs smell great while they are being cooked and they cook fast. It took me about 20 seconds for each side of the corn dogs to be done.  If you try these at home, do not worry if the batter looks like it is runny or falling down as you place it in the fryer, it will come together. The batter folds out and up as it is dropped in the oil and cooks, so the entire dog will get covered, with maybe a few bald spots, but very tiny.

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So there you have it,  my first attempt at making homemade corn dogs. It was easy, cheap, quick, fun, and more importantly my "little" critics loved it!!!

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I even had enough extra batter to make cornbread. Although Christine recommends adding water to the batter before you do this, I found I did not have to, so you may just want to eyeball your batter to see if you need it or not.

I just loved these corn dogs, they had a lot of character and flavor!

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Until next time!