I’ve never really thought much of cornbread. Mainly because when I eat sugar and wheat, I like it to be something really indulgent. Then I went to Magnolia for a friend’s birthday on the second day of a pre-cleanse and decided to just try a tiny bit since it seemed almost healthy. It was wonderful. Perhaps it was the fact that I’d cut out all sugar and wheat for a few months beforehand, but the sweet richness won me over straight away.
Fast forward a few weeks to my food-fuelled holiday in California where I tried it as an accompaniment to scrambled egg with truffles and asparagus. This particular version was about 3 inches thick, a lovely warm yellow colour, and made with large quantities of honey and butter.
A few days ago I decided to have a go at making a batch. It was quite a struggle to find cornmeal but ended up buying a bag at city’super that was stone ground and organic. I looked up several recipes and settled on one of the easier ones that literally involved chucking everything in a bowl and mixing it just a couple of times.
This didn’t work out so well. I had replaced the plain flour with wholemeal, so it was quite dry even though I added a little extra liquid, plus the cornmeal was incredibly hard, like eating something made from gravel. After braving a couple of mouthfuls, I decided to give it another go. Round 2 was a little bit better – I had bought some millet flour I wanted to try out so I used that instead of wheat flour, I ground up the cornmeal for a couple of minutes in the coffee bean grinder, and also substituted the sugar for agave nectar. It didn’t rise much obviously, but it was much lighter and much softer than the first attempt.
The first attempt, drizzled with agave nectar and topped with lots of butter
My baking techniques could obviously benefit from a more consistent methodology and perhaps my third attempt will be more successful (and less experimental). I think for now I’ll stick to trying other people’s cornbread.
The second attempt - doesn't look as good but tasted much better!
Just out of the oven
on an empty stomach 