Episode 30
December 20, 2010
Corn Bread
Ever since my sister in California mentioned she had corn bread for Thanksgiving, I was in the mood for corn bread. I don’t know many people who crave corn bread, but for some reason I did and now I’m sharing this great basic corn bread recipe with you!
This is another super quick recipe that you can get done in probably less than 30 minutes. You’d benefit from using an electric mixer but it can be made without one. What’s also great about this recipe is that it’s a master recipe meaning that it’s a very simple but solid recipe that can be altered greatly and not have many consequences. From baking it in different pans to adding lots of different ingredients to customize it to using it in a variety of application, foods, and courses this master recipe should be in everybody’s cookbook.
Baking it in different pans is one way to customize this recipe. Many recipes can be baked in different pans for specific uses like cakes for example. You can bake a cake in a sheet pan for a very flat layer or in muffin cups to make cupcakes. Corn bread is no exception. You can bake it in a variety of sized casserole dishes, sheet pans, muffin cups, and loaf pans and you’ll get reliable results each time. Corn bread muffins are a great way to serve this recipe in a single serving style.
Adding different ingredients to customize this corn bread recipe and make it your own is another way to take advantage of it’s flexibility. Because this corn bread recipe is dense but light and by no means delicate it can take a lot of experimentation. As you’ll see in the video I added 4 ounces of frozen corn to the batter but you can probably add up to 8 ounces. The corn bread baked just fine – no weird consequences for altering the recipe. Another way you can alter the recipe is to make cheddar jalapeno corn bread muffins. Add some shredded cheddar cheese and some chopped jarred jalapenos to the batter, pour into muffin cups, and sprinkle more cheese on top and you’ve got an easy delicious savory dish.
This corn bread’s versatility can also apply to different ways you end up using the finished product. Just recently I made this into corn bread stuffing and it was a hit. Take an onion and sautee it. Take half of the corn bread and dice it up, place it in a bowl, and (using your fingers) crush it up a little more – but don’t pulverize it completely. Add the sauteed onion, a good amount of powdered thyme, and enough whole milk to make it sticky (like a cup, or a cup and a half). Toss the ingredients together until well blended and then you can bake it like this at 350 degrees F in a casserole dish until it’s dry and a little toasted or what I like to do is form them into patties and bake them on a sheet pan like how my Grandma does (thanks Grandma!). The patties are a hit, trust me! Other ways you can use this corn bread include: slicing it into thin cubes and toasting them and using them as croutons for salads or french onion soup, using it for an open faced sandwich, or serving it with vanilla ice cream (yes, ice cream!).
In this recipe you’ll find that I have an uncommon ingredient: dry milk solids. Dry milk solids are exactly what they sound like: powdered milk. Dry milk solids are great because it allows bakers to add the tenderizing creaminess of milk to the dry ingredients – especially helpful in recipes where liquid content is a big deal. It’s also great because milk is expensive but dry milk solids are typically less expensive. A gallon of milk is about $2.50 and dry milk solids are about $3.99 but the solids go further because you can use less to get the same results (when used in recipes anyway, a typical box of dry milk solids should make between 3 to 4 quarts of milk or about one gallon) plus unlike milk, dry milk solids do not have to be refrigerated and can last a lot longer. That benefit alone is what bake shops love dry milk solids. Refrigerator space in a bake shop is like expensive real estate and the less stuff you can have in refrigerator the better. Either way, if you don’t want to use dry milk solids you can use whole milk as long as you substitute liquid out (in this case replace the water).
So here’s the recipe for corn bread and below is the short video on how to make it – enjoy and thanks for watching! This is my last video until after Christmas – I’m going to try to do one before New Year’s though. You’re going to love what I have planned – something unique, new, and developed by me!
