Classic Corn Bread

Hey Y'all.

July hit me like a ton of bricks. You didn't think I forgot about you, did you? 

Working two jobs, taking 11 credits at school and throwing the occasional trip into the mix has kept me incredibly busy. I have been cooking, I just haven't had time to sit down at the computer and type it up.

This next week I'll be on vacation as well, visiting the fam on the east coast, so unfortunately I'll probably have sparse posting until the end of the month, when school starts up again. Just fair warning!

Speaking of the East Coast...

Because I grew up on the East Coast, with family ranging from Georgia to Pennsylvania, I have a very interesting frame of reference for food. There are many things that I love that are regional foods, but I don’t associate them with regional foods – I just associate them with growing up. Foods such as hominy and liver pudding, or puddin’ as I like to say, shrimp and grits, biscuits and sausage gravy, scrapple and whoopie pies are still some of my favorites, but trying to find versions reminiscent of home out in the Midwest can be difficult.


Cornbread is also very regional – most places have it, but how it’s prepared and eaten is very location-specific. I like my cornbread ‘southern-style” sweet and cakey. It can have jalapeño, cheese and/or bits of corn in it, but the sweeter, the better.


I’ve made a few recipes from scratch, blindly following the recipe with no real idea of the expected end result. Typically the cornbread was too dry, and not sweet enough. I figured this time I would try the recipe on the back of the corn meal carton, who knows cornbread better than the people that make the main ingredient for it? I upped the amount of sugar in the recipe, of course, but kept the rest the same.


And it was delicious.


I’ve made the recipe a few times now, occasionally adding cheese, corn and jalepenos to it, and also making it in mini loaf pans, as shown in this post, muffin tins and, my all time favorite – my cast iron corn stick pan.




Sweet Southern Corn Bread
Adapted from the Back of the Quaker Cornmeal Canister

Yield one 8x8 Pan
You will need:
1-¼ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup Quaker Corn Meal
6 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk
¼ cup vegetable oil
2 egg whites beaten or 1 whole egg

Directions
Mix the dry ingredients. Beat the egg. Add the wet ingredients to dry. Pour into a buttered 8x8 or 9x9 casserole dish. Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes.

Cheddar Bay Biscuits

A good biscuit is a thing of beauty. It can be a vehicle for sausage gravy or a delivery system for your favorite jam. You can stick a sausage patty inside for a sandwich or plop it on top of chicken stew to make quick dumplings. But the best biscuit is the one that can stand on its own, with only a smear of butter.

I’m guilty of serving my fair share of hockey puck biscuits, especially the first few times after I vehemently swore off of Bisquick for my recipes. I do not know why I feel better about making biscuits without Bisquick, but I think it is mostly attributed to the fact that I use it so infrequently that a box hits its expiration date before I can use half of it. I hate wasting things, so I decided to start making things like pancakes and biscuits from scratch, without the help of Bisquick.

I’ve made cutout biscuits that could probably be used in the NFL, and I’ve made drop biscuits that were so strangely wet that the bottoms burnt before the inside lost its gumminess. I put the biscuit recipe search off to the side after having to eat several sub-par biscuits.

One evening, my husband came home after a really long day, and I wanted to make something special for him. I know he loves Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay biscuits, so I ventured back into the biscuit world again to find a recipe that would be similar to that one.

I landed on this recipe, and am thrilled that I did. While outside was slightly crisp with a crunch - not quite identical to the Red Lobster counterparts - these were definitely winners nonetheless. The outside, though different than the authentic cheddar bay biscuits was delicious, the buttery topping added a nice punch of flavor. The inside of these biscuits are the things dreams are made of - tender, soft, cheesy and light as air inside. Perfection.


While I may keep looking for another Cheddar Bay biscuit recipe, I will definitely be keeping this cheddar cheese biscuit in my repertoire. I may also try leaving out all the cheese and spices and see what this biscuit would be like topped with some sausage gravy. It would be a vast improvement from my last few attempts.


The Ultimate Cheddar Bay Biscuits
From Chickens in the Road

Biscuits
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/4 cups milk
Note: If using a baking mix, replace first 5 ingredients with 2 1/2 cups baking mix.
Place first 5 ingredients (or 2 1/2 cups baking mix) in a large bowl. Add cayenne pepper and garlic powder.

Work in the butter with a pastry cutter. Stir in cheese then add sour cream and milk. Scoop biscuit dough out by big spoonfuls and place in a greased 9 x 13 casserole pan. (Or other type of pan with an edge to it–if you use a flat baking sheet, butter sauce will spill down into your oven. Ask me how I know that……)

Topping
6 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon parsley
dash of salt
Melt butter. Stir in garlic powder, parsley, and a dash of salt. Spoon half of topping over unbaked biscuits.
Bake at 450 degrees for 25 minutes.* After removing biscuits from the oven, spoon the rest of the topping over them.

*Your baking time may vary! I make 20 biscuits from this recipe. If you make your biscuits smaller or larger, it will change your baking time.

Pumpkin Banana Bread

When autumn and winter roll around, it’s finally acceptable to crave foods containing baked apples, nutmeg, cinnamon and, my favorite, pumpkin. After the canned pumpkin shortage last year, I may have gotten a little excited over seeing the first cans of pumpkin appearing on our store shelves. I may have been excited enough to buy over 100 ounces of pumpkin (that would be over six pounds). While I wasn’t ready for pumpkin pie, I wanted to use one of my smaller cans of pumpkin as soon as possible. I pulled out some banana mash I had frozen a long time ago, the remnants of brown, spotted bananas too soft to eat fresh, and decided I’d make a pumpkin banana bread. There are a few recipes out in cyberspace, so I figured one of them must be worth trying.

This recipe called for two mashed bananas, but because my bananas were already mashed, I don’t exactly recall how many were in there. I guessed and put in one and a half cups of mash. The batter itself was very loose, but smelled amazing, with the addition of the pumpkin and spices, it really brought an autumnal scent to the kitchen.

The bread itself puffed up nicely when it baked, but then sank as soon as it came out of the oven. It didn’t surprise me, considering the batter was fairly wet, and I was pretty inexact when it came to the addition of the banana mash. The finished consistency was somewhat akin to a bread pudding – it was dense and moist, less like bread and set more like a silky pumpkin pie texture. Both the banana and pumpkin flavors are present in each bite, and they work surprisingly well together.

I would definitely make this again, and if I didn’t mess up the recipe beyond repair with my initial tweaking, I’m curious what other tweaks I’ll make next time to improve the end product even more.


Pumpkin Banana Bread
From Allrecipes.com

Ingredients
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup raisins (optional)
1/2 cup walnut pieces (optional)
Directions
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease an 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2.In a large bowl, stir together the mashed banana, eggs, oil, pumpkin, honey and sugar. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pie spice and cinnamon, stir into the banana mixture until just combined. Fold in the raisins and walnuts if desired. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3.Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Cool loaf in the pan for 10 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Banana Gingerbread

It's hot as Hades out here right now and I'm posting a gingerbread recipe. Just bear with me, it's worth the heat of the oven.

This recipe is from bakingbites.com. It is so amazingly tasty. Definitely best once it's first cooled from the oven, but I've frozen it and eaten it after it's rethawed, and it's still good, just a little bit drier. I pretty much followed this recipe to a "t" and it's wonderful. This is probably one of my favorite quick breads out there - maybe because it's more like a banana ginger spice cake? Probably.

Banana Gingerbread
From Baking Bites

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon (sub for 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup banana, mashed (about 2 large)
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup buttermilk
4 tbsp vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan.
In a large bowl, whisk together flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.
In a medium bowl, whisk together brown sugar, banana, molasses, buttermilk and vegetable oil. Pour into dry ingredients and stir until just ombined. Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle with coarse sugar, if desired.
Bake for about 45 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Makes 1 loaf, 8-10 slices.

Banana Bread

So many incarnations of banana bread have exited my kitchen that for once, I wanted to try just a basic banana bread recipe. No frills, no gimmicks, no healthyfying. Good old banana bread. I scoured through many of my cookbooks, and found two options. One was in a Southern Living cookbook from 1985 which included a half cup of shortening in the recipe. Hmm. Though I am not looking for a ‘healthy’ version (aka applesauce instead of oil, whole wheat flour, etc) a half cup of shortening in one loaf is a little too much for me to be comfortable eating. The other recipe was in a Bride and Groom cookbook from our wedding. It was called Unbelievable Banana Bread. Sounds promising, right? From the recipe, there are two main changes. First, because I did not need two loaves of banana bread sitting around my house, the recipe was cut in half. Second, the nuts were omitted because I was just too darn lazy to go to the store and buy them. How’s that for honest?

Another honest truth? This banana bread was delicious. Like, I-keep-sneaking-pieces-even-though-I-know-no-one-is-watching delicious. And despite my resolution not to ‘healthyfy’ it, this recipe isn’t all that terrible for you. I was a little concerned watching it bake because it doesn’t get a lot of lift, and I was half expecting to pull a banana brick from the oven. I was also noticing how quickly the outsides of the loaf started to brown, and thought it would burn on the outsides before it set up inside. I was expecting to be writing a post about ‘The Ultimate Banana Bread Failure.’

Instead, the loaf came out of the oven and had a wonderful somewhat chewy/crunchy crust on the outside resulting from the banana and brown sugar caramelizing in the oven. It didn't burn. Nor did rise up like I expected, but it was a dense yet soft intensely banana-flavored loaf. I love that I cut through it and can see little chunks of banana.

This is definitely my go-to Banana Bread recipe.

Ultimate Banana Bread
Adapted from Bride and Groom Cookbook

1 c and 2 Tbsp AP Flour
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1/4 c and 1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 c and 2 Tbsp Sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 c buttermilk or 1% milk mixed with 1-2 tsp lemon juice
1 c very ripe mashed bananas (about 2 medium)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.

Spray a 9 x 5 pan with vegetable oil cooking spray.

Stir together flour,salt and cinnamon in medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine the oil and sugar in a bowl until combined. Add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated, about 1 minute.

Stir baking soda into buttermilk(or milk and lemon mixture)in measuring cup or small bowl. Add one third of the dry ingredients, followed by half of the buttermilk mixture. Mix until combined. Add next third of dry ingredients and rest of buttermilk mixture. Stir until combined. Add last of dry ingredients and combine.

Add banana and mix until just incorporated. Don't overmix.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until the bread is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 55 minutes to 1 hour.

Let pans cool on racks for 5 minutes. Then remove loaves from pan and let sit on racks for at least 10 minutes until serving.