BBQ Chicken and Cornbread Skillet Bake

When I read this recipe it sounded soooo good.  I love barbecue/meat combinations.  And we all like cornbread.  Even the littlest one.  From $5 Dinner Mom.

BBQ Chicken and Cornbread Skillet Bake
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 onion, chopped
6 carrot sticks, peeled and chopped
6 oz barbecue sauce (I used Bullseye Kansas City style)
Cornbread Topping:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup sugar (that seems like a lot)
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
2 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 350.  In a 12 inch oven proof skillet, saute the chicken with the onions and carrots over medium high heat.  Once the chicken is cooked, reduce heat to medium-low and stir in the barbecue sauce.  Let simmer for 5-7 minutes.

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add the eggs, milk, oil, and honey and whisk until a smooth batter forms, about 2 minutes.

Pour cornbread batter over the top of the chicken in the skillet and let cook for about 2 minutes, or until the cornbread batter begins to set along the edges of the skillet.

Transfer skillet to preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes until cornbread has baked through and begins to turn golden on top.  

I don't know where to start with this review.  I am starting to suspect the cookbook author is on drugs of some kind, or lives in an area of the country where food cooks at a lightning pace.  I followed this recipe and directions exactly, except I used 3/4 cup sugar instead of 1 cup in the cornbread batter (and it was still too sweet).  It says at the beginning of this cookbook to not be tempted to use a different size dish or pan or whatever from what the recipe specifies, because it will alter the final result.  So I used a 12 inch skillet.  Did I use a ruler to make sure?  Why yes I did.  At the end of the allotted time, it was golden around the edges, but still a bit wet looking in the center, so I left it for 4 more minutes.  Then I stuck my cake tester in it, and no dough or crumbs came back.  I carefully removed it from the oven, and it jiggled suspiciously, but I thought it was (hopefully) because of the chicken layer underneath making the whole thing wobbly.  I cut into it, and a river of corn bread batter flowed into the void created by the small serving I had just removed.  I was quite angry about this.  Back into the oven it went.  For how much longer? 25 more minutes.  I had to work that night, so while it was on it's second cooking time, I got everything else ready for work.  Steve & the kids were very late for church.  I wanted to throw the whole thing in the garbage, but I'm #1 too cheap to do that, and #2 there was nothing else I could've made that fast.  If I hadn't been working, and we'd all been going to church, I would have just thrown it out anyway and hit the drive-thru on the way to CC.  But instead we were all running late.  How frustrating.  Once it was (finally) done, a cross-section of a piece of this would have shown it to be 1/5 chicken and 4/5 cornbread.  Steve was dishing it out and starting turning the giant pieces of cornbread in the skillet over and scraping the chicken off the bottom, so everyone could have an adequate amount of protein on their plate.  Steve said if I ever make this again (which clearly I won't, but he's just being helpful) to double or triple the chicken part and halve the cornbread part.

I have many  many more recipes marked in this cookbook to try, and I'm going to keep barreling through.  However, when doing my meal planning for the next two weeks, and thumbing through the book trying to decide what to make, I did unmark a previously marked recipe for biscuit-topped pizza, which you make in this same way, except with biscuit dough instead of cornbread batter.  I don't trust her with dough right now.  Stay tuned for the next few recipes...