Corn Bread
Yankee Corn Bread
My corn bread recipe is one of the most requested. I take it as a huge compliment that my friend Pia said, I love your corn bread. You have to give me the recipe.
Pia has made it very clear she has very little interest in food, cooking and otherwise. This leaves me rather confounded. For someone with no interest in food, she is a very good cook. I have yet to be disappointed at her table. On one very memorable occasion she had me and another friend in tears over her goat cheese lasagna. Both of us were so eager to get our lips wrapped around the left overs we were ready to duke it out. Not really, he and I decided to act the grown ups and share the treasures. But, guess what he forgot to take his portion of the loot home with him! And so… did I. And then we cried for real.
To this day no one knows how she did it. We just know there was goat cheese and a giant measure of YUM! We are now forever left to a life of sighs when ever said dish is mentioned.
Yes, that Pia, the accidental cook, asked for my corn bread recipe is an honor.
History
Corn bread is an American staple associated with the South. Everybody and their grandmother has a famous recipe. It is served with a wide variety of dishes chili con carne, BBQ, soups… I serve it with buffalo wings to contrast with the vinegar spiciness of the buffalo sauce and tart blue cheese dressing. Corn bread is very adaptable. It comes sweet called the Yankee bread or salt the Southern bread. You can add all manner of things to the batter. For instance spicy sausage, cheese, jalapeno or any combination of the three. You can even make cupcakes out of it.
The best part is it takes no more than 35 mins. to make including the preparation time.
-Oh did you bake?!
-Yes I did. Wink, wink.
But the truth is it is so, so easy.
Recipe
To be honest this is not my recipe. I found it on the net 13 something years ago. I can only say thanks to who ever posted it.I chose this recipe because I surmised it was the closest to my mom’s recipe, a very straightforward sweet corn bread. Needless to say I was very pleased with the result.
The Swedish kid’s I au paired called it cake bread, which wouldn’t be too far off.
Ingredients
3/4 Cups polenta/corn meal corn flour is not going to work!
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 sugar or honey I use my favorite honey, Canadian Clover Crest, with a creamy consistency. But, any honey should work.
1 egg
1/3 cooking oil
Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F/200C. Mix the polenta/corn meal with the milk in a small bowl and let soak while preparing the remaining ingredients. Don’t skip this step it softens the polenta. In a large bowl mix the flour, baking powder and sugar. If you use honey wait and add it to the egg and oil mixture. It helps to warm it up a little in the micro.
Mix the egg and oil together then stir it into the polenta and mix well with a spoon. Grease a glass baking pan. Approx. 9 inches on the long side. Pour the mix into the pan evenly. This is not a loaf bread, rather a pan bread. Then bake for 30 mins. or until a tooth pick comes out smooth.
Serve hot or cold with on it’s own, with regular butter or my favorite honey butter.
Honey butter
Honey butter is very simple. Mix a small amount of honey to taste to create a sweet and salty flavor.