Oven-Baked Corn Dogs

We had oven-baked corn dogs for dinner tonight (an early dinner). I got the recipe from my SIL Mary - it was a Rachael Ray recipe in one of her cookbooks, I believe. I didn't have the Jiffy corn muffin mix, so I substituted with the cornbread recipe I'd made a few months ago. I thought they were pretty good. I've never had a corn dog, so I didn't really have much to compare them to. Kevin wasn't impressed - but then again he couldn't get over the fact that they weren't on skewers and that these were baked and not fried. I used organic flour, organic cornmeal, an organic free-range egg, and organic milk. Here's the original recipe from Mary's blog and my changes/substitutions in parentheses. I only made half a recipe, too. So my substitutions are for only half a recipe.

I'll update with a picture later in the week.

Oven Baked Corn Dogs

2 (8oz.) boxes corn muffin mix (I used 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 1 cup cornmeal, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 4 teaspoons baking powder)
2 eggs (I used 1 egg since I was doing half a recipe)
1 1/4 - 1 1/3 cups milk (I still used just shy of 1 cup of milk)
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (I left this out)
1 Tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons hot sauce (I left this out)
2 scallions, finely chopped (I left these out)
8 hot dogs (I still used 8 hot dogs with a half-batch of batter and had a ton of batter leftover)

(Preheat the oven to 400 - Mary, I'm not sure if this is the temp. you used or not, but I didn't see the temp on your blog. All of the cornbread recipes I have use a 400 degree oven, so that's what I went with.)

In a shallow dish combine corn muffin mix with eggs, milk and melted butter (you may want to add the milk gradually and stop before it gets too runny). Season mix with chili powder, cumin, hot sauce and scallions. The batter will be thick like a wet dough.

Place the dogs on skewers (if you want them on sticks). Place each dog into the bowl of batter, swish it around to coat, remove the coated dog to a nonstick cookie sheet, and use your fingers to spread the batter on any exposed dog spots. Don't coat it too thickly, just shy of half an inch should do the trick. If it is too thick the batter will slide off while baking. Repeat until all hot dogs are coated. Bake 12 minutes, or until evenly deep brown all over.

(I used less milk to make the batter thicker, but it still slid off the hot dogs while they baked.)