Favorite Food, Thy Name is Cornbread
This was us last Saturday : just shy of a hundred degrees, smoke in the air, sitting on the water.
This was us on Tuesday : first snow of the year, just below freezing, the happiest I’ve been in a long, long while.
And over the weekend it’s supposed to climb back up into the eighties (boo!). I told you, Colorado seasons can give you whiplash if you’re not careful!!
All the shifting, changing, madness we’ve experienced lately (the weather included!) has had me baking quite a bit more than in the past few years. And the recipe I’ve made the most? Probably cornbread.
It’s such a simple, humble, food - but it makes me so ridiculously happy every time I bite into a slice. As someone who really loves to eat but has never had an honest-to-goodness FAVORITE food, it’s a revelation. I wish I could go back to every time I was forced to fill out one of those silly “lets learn about you!!” questionnaires - the ones I always had to do when I was a kid. I wish I could go back and cross out my knee-jerk responses of “pizza” or “cupcakes” and write “CORNBREAD IS MY ONE TRUE LOVE!!”
I might be losing it. But it might also be just that good.
Back in August, I even went so far as to experiment with using different types of corn to see how they might effect the flavor/texture/etc. of the bread. SO - I whipped up three batches of batter and baked them up in a brand-new cast iron pan that Eric gifted me when he realized my cornbread madness was here to stay. Batch one was a generic yellow cornmeal from the store. Batch two was blue Hopi cornmeal. And batch three was a red cornmeal with the terrifying name of “Bloody Butcher.”
Other than obvious color differences, the results were subtle. A chewier texture from the blue. A lightness and sweetness from the red. In the end, we’ve settled on a 50/50 split between red and blue corn as our perfect mix. Who am I kidding though? They were all delicious and I gobbled them down like a crazy person.
The recipe I use is one adapted from another, hastily copied from a friend’s cookbook when we lived in California. We’d gone over to his house to make dinner and watch a movie and I remember thinking that I just couldn’t leave without the ability to make that exact same meal. The friendship didn’t last - but we still make the chili we had that night (paired with a pan of cornbread, of course!) on the regular.
All of this to say, the origins of this recipe are not mine - and if I could, I’d cite original. I’ve made changes for sure, but would be remiss if I didn’t at least pay a little homage to the baker who made this whole love affair possible.
ONE MORE SMALL NOTE before I jump into the recipe : living in Northern Colorado means that I do my baking at altitude! You may need to make a couple tweaks if you’re living at a lower elevation.
Ok - let’s begin!
Ingredients :
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
2tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1tsp salt
3/4 cup non-dairy milk (we usually use oat!)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup melted coconut oil
2tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups corn kernels
Let the milk and maple syrup come to room temperature before you begin (or gently warm them if you don’t want to wait!).
Preheat the oven to 350.
In a bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a second bowl, whisk together the milk, syrup, melted coconut oil, and AC vinegar. If the coconut oil begins to solidify, it just means the other wet ingredients were too cold - simply rewarm the whole mixture until the oil melts again.
Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet.
Using a spatula, fold in the corn kernels. You can use fresh or frozen - but if you use frozen, make sure they are fully thawed (aka, not cold to the touch!) before adding to your batter.
This recipe perfectly fills a 9x9 baking pan (though you can obviously use a cornbread pan or cast iron skillet if you prefer). You can also grease your pan with a little extra coconut oil if you’d like, but I usually just pour the batter right in.
Bake for 25-30 minutes. I know the bread is done when the top begins to turn golden (or just darken if I’m using a non-yellow corn) and the middle looks and feels dry. I have found that a toothpick will come out clean before the bread is actually “done” - but these two tests never let me down. Let cool, slice, and serve with the comfort food of your choice!