Lemon Cornbread Cake

This naturally gluten-free recipe looks delicious.

Boone Tavern Spoon Bread, the 1950s recipe

We have tried spoonbreads (soft, luscious, buttery—described by James Beard as a "heavy, dense soufflé") as Cornbread Supper mainstays before, and used great recipes, but the spoonbreads always did what spoonbreads (and soufflés) do: deflate. Through serendipity, and thanks to a Cornbread Supperian, I lucked into the old Boone Tavern (Berea College) recipe for spoonbread, and it is far less droopy. Perhaps Boone Tavern developed an approach to spoonbread that preserves all its goodness while still working for a busy restaurant. In any case, with thanks to Kentucky food and foodways author and guru John van Willigen, here's an excellent recipe for that can be doubled, tripled, and quadrupled to feed spoonbread to a crowd. It did just that on Monday, February 25, 2013.

From Richard T. Hougen. Look No Further: A cookbook of favorite recipes from Boone Tavern Hotel, Berea College, Kentucky. New York: Abingdon Press. 1955.

Southern Spoon Bread

1955

Ingredients

3 cups milk

1 1/4 cups cornmeal

3 eggs

2 tablespoons butter

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Procedure

1. Stir meal into rapidly boiling milk. Cook until very thick, stirring constantly, to prevent scorching.

2. Remove from fire and allow to cool. The mixture will be cold and very stiff.

3. Add well egg, salt, baking powder and melted butter. Beat with electric beater for 15 minutes. If hand beating is used break the hardened cook meal into the beaten eggs in

small amounts until all is well mixed. Then beat thoroughly for 10 mintues using a wooden spoon.
4. Pour into well-greased casserole. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees F. Serve from casserole by spoonfuls.

Cooking note: I quadrupled the recipe, used Sunflower Sundries heirloom organic Hickory King cornnmeal (available at Good Foods Market), and made the cornmeal/milk mixture in a crockpot. I mixed the cold milk and cornmeal together, and set the crockpot to cook on high for four hours. I checked it after 2.75 hours, and it was adequately cooked. I let the mixture cool completely and then made the recipe as written.

Rough Guess: Spicy Red Pepper Cheese Cornbread

This cornbread, or something like it, remains a favorite of some who come to Cornbread Supper. It's often made by guess, based on what's available, but here's an attempted recipe.

And now the frank admission: This cornbread is a lot of work. We could call it "Arduous Cornbread." You have to love it, or serve it to people who love it, to make it worthwhile.

For one 9-inch cast iron skillet, which serves 6 - 12, depending on so many factors.

Ingredients

• 2 ½  cups unbolted white cornmeal
• 1 ½  cups buttermilk
• ½ cup neutral oil (I like grapeseed oil or rice bran oil best)
• ½ cup cottage cheese - as tart and as close to dry curd as possible; or use sour cream
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup grated or cubed sharp cheddar, Asiago or Gruyere
• ½ cup grated Parmesan (save a couple of Tablespoons for sprinkling on top)
• 1  medium yellow or extra-sweet onion
• 1 cup (or more) fresh or frozen corn kernels (if frozen, you can add them to the skillet after the onions are finished, to help with warming)
• ⅓ — ½ cup chopped hot red (or green, or orange) peppers (can be roasted or sauteed with onions, or you can just use them chopped/raw)
• Coarsely ground black pepper, up to 1 Tablespoon, according to taste
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons table salt or finely ground salt; 2 ½ teaspoons kosher or coarse sea salt
• 1  teaspoon sorghum (completely optional - it’s my good luck charm, and an  “encourager” for the naturally sweet tastes in the savory batter)
• Boiling water

Method

Prequel:
If you think of it and have time, mix the cornmeal and buttermilk together thoroughly in a very large bowl up to 24 hours in advance, and let set at room temperature. Even an hour can help. This “blooms” the meal a little bit, makes the nutrients more accessible, aids with moistness in the final product, and allows the batter to be significantly warmer than if you use buttermilk straight from the refrigerator. Warmer batter cooks more quickly and evenly. But if you don’t have time or don’t remember any of this, the cornbread will still be good.

Prep:
Chop and sauté the onions in olive or other good oil; add hot peppers if you like. Cube or grate the cheeses. After the vegetables are cooked and the heat is turned off, add the corn kernels if you like.

Preheat:
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. (In a hurry, you can bake this at 400, but it can get fairly brown on the outside while remaining a bit more moist than you’d like inside.) Put the skillet in the oven during preheating.

Now things start hopping!

1. Put the ½ cup neutral oil in the heated skillet, and return the skillet to the oven.
2. If you have “bloomed” your cornmeal, use that bowl for assembling the batter, adding all the ingredients in number 3.
3. If  you have not bloomed the cornmeal, in a very large bowl, put these ingredients: cornmeal, buttermilk, cottage cheese or sour cream, eggs, cheeses (except for 2 tablespoons, to be used for topping), sautéed onions, peppers, corn kernels, baking powder, soda, salt, and sorghum.
4. Stir thoroughly.
5. Carefully remove the hot skillet from the oven and pour all but about 1 ½ Tablespoons heated oil onto your batter (sizzle!). Leave enough oil to coat the bottom of the skilled lightly.
6. Give the batter a quick (careful) stir.
7. If  you have your cornmeal handy, sprinkle about two Tablespoons of it into the skillet, and return the skillet to the oven. (This is optional; if you are in a hurry, just skip this step.)
8. If your batter feels overly thick and sluggish, add some boiling (or very hot) water; stir, repeat if needed, until batter is medium thick, and, in spite of the chunks of good things in it, doesn’t exert undue drag on the stirring spoon. (Sometimes I do not add boiling water at all - the liquids may have made a runnier batter, or … I don’t know! I just guess.)
9. Carefully get your skillet out of the oven, and carefully pour the batter into it. (Sizzle!)
10. Sprinkle with the grated cheese.
11. Bake for about 25 -30 minutes, until thoroughly golden brown. Better to err on the side of over-done than under-done in this case, as more cooking likely adds more crunch, and probably helps keep the very center from being unpleasantly goopy.
12. Remove the skillet from the oven, and run a knife around the outside of the cornbread. If you can tell that the cornbread will slip out of the skillet, you can either use a slender spatula to help guide it face-up onto a platter, or you can (extremely carefully!) put a rack or platter over the cornbread and flip it upside down, OR you can simply serve it from the skillet.
13. If you have leftovers, they keep in the refrigerator for a week, or in the freezer for  six months. Leftover pieces of this cornbread become memorable when you slice them open and slowly (and spottily) brown them (for still more crust) in a hot toaster oven or regular oven.

Tom's Excellent Bread

When Tom Eblen walks into the house for Cornbread Supper, he often carries a beautiful, warm loaf of bread. When he leaves after Supper, I've never seen him take any bread home. Regardless of other foods on the table, people gravitate to this delicious round loaf, and systematically reduce it to nothing but a few crumbs.

Tom generously shared the recipe, which he first got from his daughter Mollie, and has tweaked a little. Thank you, Tom.

Good & Easy Crusty Bread

2 cups lukewarm water

1 T dry yeast

1 T sea or kosher salt

4 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Mix water and yeast in a large bowl. After about five minutes, stir in salt, then gradually stir in flour with a wooden spoon until the dough is uniformly moist. Cover the wet dough with a lid, but not airtight. (I usually set a pizza pan on the bowl.)  Let it rise at room temperature until it begins to collapse — at least two hours and no more than five hours.  You can bake after that, but I often find it is better to cover the bowl (again, not airtight) and put it in the refrigerator for at least three hours. It will keep for a week or more. Because the dough is very wet, it is easier to form into balls for baking when it is cold.

When ready to bake, prepare a pizza peel board with some cornmeal. Divide the dough in half; I usually bake one half and leave the other for another day. Dust the dough lump with a little flour to keep it from sticking to your hands and form it into a ball about the size of a grapefruit by pulling the sides down around the bottom, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go.  Put the dough ball on the cornmeal-covered pizza peel and let it "relax" for about an hour, uncovered. Using a serrated knife, cut a tic-tac-toe pattern in the top, about a half-inch deep, then sprinkle the ball liberally with flour.

Heat oven to 450 degrees with a pizza stone on the upper rack.  Put bread on the stone, then put a broiler pan with a cup or two of water on the lower rack. Cook for about 30 minutes, until the bread's crust is nicely brown and firm to the touch. Remove bread and cool on a wire rack.  (If you don't have a pizza stone, you can put the bread in the oven on a cookie sheet or pizza pan and it will work almost as well.) 

Vegan Wheat Free Corn Muffins

For 36 muffins

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Spray muffin tins with Bakers Joy.

Grind 3 tablespoons golden flaxseed until very fine. Stir thoroughly into 9 tablespoons of water. (This is the egg substitute.)

Mix together in one bowl:
3 1/3 cups gluten-free all purpose flour (I like Bloomfield)
1 3/4 cup unbolted white (or yellow) cornmeal (I like Weisenberger)
1 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
5 Tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Mix together in second bowl:
Flaxseed mixture
14 ounces refined coconut oil, melted (refined works best at the high baking temperature)
3/4 cup excellent sorghum (I like Country Rock)
2 cups cultured coconut milk
1 Tablespoon each (or to taste): ground coriander, ground cumin, ground cayenne

Stir wet and dry ingredients together thoroughly.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Turn out immediately and eat, or let cool outside muffin tins, to prevent steaming the crust.

Crackling Corn Muffins

For 12 muffins

Heat oven to 475 degrees. Spray muffin tins with Bakers Joy.

Mix together in one bowl:

1 3/4 cups unbolted white (or yellow) cornmeal (I like Weisenberger)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Add in:

2 cups buttermilk (I like JD Country Milk)
1 small egg
1/4 pound pork cracklings (or more, or less, to taste)

Stir thoroughly.

Divide dough into muffin cups. Bake about 20 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from pans immediately to avoid steaming the crust.

Enjoy plain, with butter, or with sorghum butter.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For 36 muffins

Heat oven to 475 degrees. Spray muffin tins with Bakers Joy.

Mix together in one bowl:

5 1/4 cups unbolted white (or yellow) cornmeal (I like Weisenberger)
5 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon salt

Add in:

6 cups buttermilk (I like JD Country Milk)
3 small eggs
3/4 pound pork cracklings (or more, or less, to taste)

Stir thoroughly.

Divide dough into muffin cups. Bake about 20 minutes, until nicely browned. Remove from pans immediately to avoid steaming the crust.

Enjoy plain, with butter, or with sorghum butter.

Fall Cornbread: September and October, 2012

Showing images instead of food descriptions from the last month of Cornbread Suppers.

The now standard Berry Corn Muffins, usually made without wheat flour

Local beets in a flavor nest

An August plate

So many phyto-nutrients, so much crunch

Tomatoes+Corn 4Ever

A favorite, frequently appearing salad in front of Au Naturel Farm baby ginger

Late summer perfection

Greens, tomatoes, cornbread: happiness on a plate

One week, the cornbread refused to budge.

The beauty of radishes from Johnson Avenue

Apple pizza, arugula topping