I'm baa-aack.
While I was away from the blog, I made this week's recipe from the Slow and Steady Sub-Group of the Bread Baker's Apprentice. This week, we're straying from yeast to cornbread, which is technically a quick bread. Just not when Peter Reinhart is making it. He has us make a soaker of coarse cornmeal and buttermilk. Instead of just letting mine sit overnight, I stuck it in the fridge the next day and kept it a couple of days before making the cornbread.
A central ingredient of this recipe is bacon, which I don't eat. I ran through a variety of variations in my mind (caramelized onions, sun-dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers...) but in the end, time caught up with me and I simply omitted the bacon without substituting another flavor agent.
This was an uneventful preparation. I used a 9x13 pan (well, two of them since I doubled the recipe) and found myself wishing I made it in a cast iron skillet to get the deeply crisp crust I love on cornbread. Although this was good with the addition of fresh corn, I'm southern by birth and I prefer southern cornbread (that is, without the addition of sugar). This recipe is for northern cornbread, even though the sugar is minimal, I think it affects the flavor and interferes with the corn flavor.
Even though I appreciated the simplicity of this recipe, I found myself missing yeast and the contemplative nature of making a yeast bread. So please come back in two weeks, for we'll be making cranberry walnut celebration bread. I'm already starting to have braiding angst...
6 comments:
Ciao ! I'm just about to start mine ! I hope it will be nice, Luckily I don't have a northern or southern taste !
I am with you...I could have done without the bacon gunking things up but my guys loved the bacon, of course. I liked the rest of the recipe, especially the addition of freshly cut-off-the-cob corn kernels which I had never done before. I like mine less sweet, too, so all in all I think you and I could eat cornbread together and be perfectly happy coming up with our own version! Yours looks wonderful.
Your cornbread looks great. There is something about yeasted bread, isn't there?
I am a BIG fan of yeasted bread.:)
But this cornbread looks delicious!
The corn bread looks great. It was good in the cast iron skillet. Just the right amount of crunch.
We liked it a lot, but next time - no bacon.
Your cornbread is lovely, and I'm guessing you shared it with a lot of people since you doubled it? I'll bet they were happy! I like any kind of cornbread, and this was a good one.
I've made a yeasted bread with corn (not exactly a cornbread) and it was delicious. I'll be posting it eventually, but if you get the hankering before I publish, it's Dan Lepard's Maize Bread.
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