Thursday, November 10, 2011

You might want to make this tonight


Cornbread has nothing to do with vintage jewelry but this recipe is too good to keep to myself. It comes from my friend Steph who is a brilliant PhD student by day and a gifted home cook by night. She mentioned her "signature cornbread" to me in an email last month and my ears perked right up.  I consider myself to be a bit of a cornbread connoisseur and I can say with confidence that this is the best I have ever had. I served it with chili last week for dinner and then had the leftovers for breakfast the next day. It has a dense, cake-y crumb, it's not too sweet, and you can serve it with honey and butter or cheddar and peppers! I'm going to be making this recipe for the rest of my life.

Steph's Cornbread (modified from Dana Sly's Blue Ribbon Vegan Cornbread)

2 T ground flax seed + 6 T boiling water
3/4 c white flour
1/4 c rye flour
3/4 c fine cornmeal
1/4 c polenta
2 1/2 T sugar
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 c milk
1 T vinegar
1 1/2 t vanilla (optional)
3 T oil
1 T applesauce
1/2 c corn kernels



Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 9" cake pan. In medium bowl, stir boiling water into ground flax with fork. In large bowl, thoroughly stir together flours, cornmeals, sugar, baking powder, and salt. To flax mixture, add: milk (bit by bit to combine smoothly), vinegar, vanilla (if using), oil and applesauce. Then mix this into the dry ingredients and add corn kernels. Stir just to combine. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 22 minutes.

You may add frozen cranberries or raspberries to the batter and dust with sugar for a sweet cornbread dessert or sprinkle a little cheddar cheese and pepper/chilis on top just before baking.

4 comments:

lauren said...

as soon as i am not "in the weeds" i want to make this!

Marguerite said...

Duff, that does look yummy! I am going to try it. I know what you mean when you say, "I will use this recipe for the rest of my life!". Those are the best recipes!! My family enjoys Paul Prudhomme's cornbread from his Louisiana Kitchen cookbook; but it has no corn niblets and I'd like a good recipe including those sweet little morsels. Our favorite barbecue place here in PDX, "Podnah's" has wonderful cornbread. It changed one day and I asked the waiter -- chef started using some sour cream in it. Really moistened things up and improved the crumb. I was too shy to ask for his recipe. However, Podhah's recipe for buttermilk biscuits was in our newspaper years ago.... now if you want a really, really good biscuit recipe, let me know! His are perfection.

steph.kelley said...

You're too generous! I'm blushing. I'm immensely pleased that you like it so much, and that you created such a gorgeous photo-post tribute to it (and to me, you darling thing!). Thank you for making my entire week!! Hugs to you and the sweet bean -- xoxoxoxo

Blanka said...

mmmm... it looks so good!

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