Cornbread is deceptively hard to do well. It's considered a poor man's bread and recipes for it are often quite simple. This leads those new to making it believe it'll be an easy do. However, the trick to cornbread is cooking it so it doesn't get hard and crumbly. While baking, cornbread can go from being just under-done to over-done in minutes.
I'm a Texas darling. I've made cornbread for almost 20 years. I do it quite well, though not perfectly. I've always had Red Hendricks' cornbread in my head as the gold standard of good cornbread. Hers came from the oven fluffy and flaky and it melted on your tongue. And until this week, I never made anything close to it.
Yesterday afternoon, I was busy in my kitchen baking cheer. The Autumn weather had me nostalgic for the smell of home baked bread, I decided to make a small loaf while I started a pot of slow-cook chili.
As it goes in the usual process of baking homemade bread, I set my oven to 200*F, wrapped the dough in a wet towel and set it to rise in the oven. Meanwhile I prepared my cornbread recipe, poured it in the pan and let it sit while the bread dough finished rising. Good cornbread batter should always sit for about 15mins in the pan before you bake it. The ingredients combine beautifully and it does it's own version of rising which is just time for the baking soda to react.
The old rule of thumb to Texas Cornbread and Texas BBQ is to cook it low and slow. My intention on removing the wheat bread dough from the oven was to turn the heat up to 300*F, where the cornbread would bake for 30 mins. Instead I completely forgot and put the cornbread batter in immediately and never adjusted the temp from 200*F.
Twenty minutes into baking, while I'm chopping onions and fighting my watery onion eyes, my brain rings a bell that I've forgotten to raise the temp. In a panic I check the cornbread to find the coloring is good and it's rising slowly. I raised the oven temp to the right temp (300*F) and crossed my fingers that I hadn't ruined it completely.
Another twenty minutes later, I pulled a lovely loaf of soft, golden Texas Cornbread from the oven. I allowed it to cool and sampled my handwork.
Red Hendrick would be so proud of me. (wink) The cornbread was perfect...light, fluffy, and melt-in-your-mouth delicious.
Eager to determine if this happy accident was the cause of my delicious creation, I put in another pan of batter. I repeated the same process exactly. The cornbread came out perfectly again.
Below is the recipe I've used for years to make cornbread from scratch. I encourage you to try it, along with my Vegan 3 Bean Chili for the perfect cold-weather meal.
Ingredients:
1 cup of stone ground, whole grain yellow Corn Meal (white varieties also work well)
1 cup of unbleached wheat flour (*You can substitute Gluten-Free Flour with Xantham Gum)
1 cup of Sugar in the Raw (or brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon of Sea Salt
1 cup of Almond or Soy Milk (any milk will do)
1 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 large brown Eggs
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 200*F. Grease your baking pan.
Mix all dry ingredients into a large bowl. Stir them with a fork with make sure they're well combined. Dent a deep well in the middle of the mixture to pour in the wet ingredients for mixing.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, and oil. Pour them into the well in the dry ingredient bowl. Using the same fork, work the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, keeping attention to the sides and bottom of bowl, until everything is well mixed.
I prefer to bake my cornbread in a Bundt pan, but you use which ever well-greased pan works best for you. While popular, I would recommend you not make cornbread in a muffin pan. It dries out quickly when baked that way. Pour the batter into the pan and let is set undisturbed for at least 15mins. No need to time it, an approximation works and there's no penalty for letting it set longer.
Place the pan on the center oven rack. Let it bake for 20 mins. Turn the pan in the oven, and raise the temp to 300*F for another 20 mins. The top of the cornbread should be golden brown and slightly tacky to the touch. A toothpick should slide out clear. Let the cornbread cool for 15 minutes before serving. This allows the moisture (steam) to settle in the bread and seal it's moist texture.
Enjoy!
This recipe is:
-Vegetarian
-Gluten-Free
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