Corn Chip Sombreros

I picked up a mini-donut pan, this week.  Making donuts was on our summer bucket list, really to go with National Donut Day back in June, but better late than never, besides which the pans were on sale.

Anyway, we did make some donuts...

...Strawberry Whole Grain Donuts following a recipe from Chocolate & Carrots, except we substituted regular flour for the whole grain flour, and plain old 2% milk for the buttermilk, because we didn't have those other things.  But, we did use the honey, and fresh picked strawberries, so we called them healthy :).  At least, they might have been before we dipped them into chocolate glaze á la Alton Brown.

The glaze was really good, but that's not the point of this post.  The point is, as I was washing up the pans after making the donuts, I couldn't help but think how the shape of each donut mold really looked perfect for shaping tiny sombreros, and for some reason or other, tiny sombreros made me think of corn chips.

So, I Googled around for a baked corn chip recipe, and after comparing several, all of which used the same four ingredients in varying amounts, came up with:

1 1/4 cup of corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup of boiling water

You can play around with the recipe a little, you just want it thick enough to handle, and moist enough to stick together.  I think next time I might like more salt.  They don't end up tasting much like store bought corn chips, and are sort of an acquired taste, but they're not bad with a dip.

To form the dough into sombreros, work with wet fingers to pat down about 1/2 a tablespoon's worth of the dough, to thinly cover each ring in a mini-donut pan, sprayed lightly with cooking spray.  Then form a small ball of dough over the center post of each donut mold...

...pressing it down, to join around the edges.  A rubber covered baby spoon dipped in water works great for this. A damp finger would do as well, but my fingers were starting to feel pruney.  The recipe above makes about 36 chips.

Bake them for 15 minutes at 375° F, then pop them out of the pan...

...and flip them over onto a cookie sheet, to bake for another couple of minutes, until they are crispy, rather than chewy.

Serve warm, with salsa...

...or let them cool completely for use as finger puppet accessories.  You can eat them cold, like normal corn chips if you like, but we all thought they were better warm, right out of the oven.

It's great to be a homeschooler.