Cornbread Video

I apologize for not posting any updates in literally years. Now my custom domain actually has expired, so if you're still with me, thanks for hanging in there.

Due to me working long hours and still having most of my cake decorating stuff in storage from moving house, my poor blog and YouTube channel have been all but abandoned. I figured I would share my favorite cornbread recipe since it’s quick, easy, and gluten free, even though we’re no longer in “cold weather comfort food” season. But hey, it freezes well.

So, if you have a minute to spare and would like to see how I make cornbread (gluten free, of course!) then please check out the video below.

Cornbread

I have a thing about cornbread. I used to work at a bakery that made the best cornbread ever. It was a Friday thing. They didn't make cornbread any other day of the week, which was lucky because that meant I could only get it on Fridays, thereby limiting my consumption. I have no clue how they made it, and the bakery closed down years ago. I've been on the search for cornbread that good ever since. I still haven't found it, but I think this recipe comes pretty close, with my tweaks.

Depending on how you make it and the type of cornmeal you use, cornbread can be sweet or not, really coarse and crumbly or more fine and cake-like. Of course, nowadays I need gluten-free cornbread, which is no problem as long as the recipe only uses cornmeal and doesn't call for any flour. Turns out, that's easier said than done if my online search for "cornbread recipe" is anything to go by. That's why I latched onto this recipe--it's made with just cornmeal, no flour required. I saw that it called for 1/3 cup of sugar, and I was looking for a savory cornbread recipe, but I figured I could always use less sugar, or none at all. I also didn't have enough vegetable oil. You need a full cup for this recipe, and all I had in my pantry was 3/4 cup, so used 1/2 cup of melted butter instead of just 1/4 cup to compensate.

The main reason I wanted cornbread is because I was cooking a turkey and wanted to make dressing. I live in the south, and we make dressing with cornbread. At least, that's what I grew up eating, and I really don't like any other kind of stuffing/dressing. In order to make good dressing, you have to start with good cornbread. Trust me on this one. I once ate dressing that was made with sweet cornbread, and it did not taste good. Dressing is a savory dish, after all. One year, I tried making dressing using cornbread made from Bob's Gluten Free Cornbread Mix, and because the cornbread itself had an aftertaste, so did the dressing it went in. But the superlative cornbread from Beckers (see note, below) always made such delicious dressing.

I baked this cornbread without any real expectation of greatness, but still hoping that it would taste good so my dressing would be edible. Thank goodness it's delicious. The recipe yields 12 standard-size muffins, and three quickly disappeared before I even got the celery and onions started, so I had to tell the cornbread lovers of the house not to eat any more until I had the dressing made. Luckily, there were a few left over, but they didn't last very long. The next day I got some more vegetable oil, and I decided to make the cornbread again, this time following the recipe exactly, and I didn't like it quite as much. This is mostly because I used the full 1/3 cup sugar, and that made the cornbread a little sweet, which I don't like. The second batch of muffins were less buttery, but I suppose that's to be expected since I didn't use as much butter.

I'm sorry for not having any pictures to post of the recipe in progress, but I honestly didn't even think to take any. Besides, I wasn't sure if this recipe would be blog-worthy, and I was far too busy with other things on the go in my kitchen at the time.

Also, the recipe calls for self-rising cornmeal, which I didn't have. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I was able to figure out how to use regular cornmeal by adding baking powder and salt to it. If you use self-rising cornmeal, then stick with the quantities listed in the original recipe.

Cornbread Muffins (recipe tweaked from Southern Hands Cornbread)

2 cups + 2 teaspoons cornmeal
2 1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon + a pinch of salt
3 Tablespoons sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and spray the cavities of a 12-cup standard muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Combine the dry ingredients and whisk to blend. Make a well in the center.

Beat together the eggs, oil, buttermilk, and melted butter. Add to dry ingredients and whisk until well blended.

Pour into muffin pan and bake 15 minutes. They are delicious warm.

 

About Beckers: There is still a Beckers Bakery in the Nashville area, but that's not where I worked and got the awesome cornbread from. I don't know if the two bakeries shared recipes or not (they had different owners who were somehow related, I think), and I don't know if the Beckers on Lebanon Pike even sells cornbread. I tried calling them to ask, but of course they're closed until after New Years. Does anyone who lives on that side of town know?

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Nutty Crust Peach Pie (Gluten Free)

Summer fruit rocks. Not too long ago I brought home 4 pounds of delicious peaches from the Farmers Market, and I decided to make a pie with them using the same gluten-free pie crust recipe that I usually put blueberries in. It's from the Whole Foods website: All Nut Crumb Crust. Only this time I used half almonds and half pecans because I was running low on almonds. It tasted awesome, with the pecans complementing the peaches nicely, even though I totally burned the edges.

I tried to make the filling recipe as healthy as possible by subbing maple syrup for the sugar and reducing the amount. I probably could have omitted the sweetener altogether. Seriously, these peaches were more than sweet enough. I also reduced the amount of corn starch, but that maybe wasn't such a great idea. These peaches were really juicy, and the filling liquid didn't thicken much. I actually had to strain some of it off, but that worked out fine as I then used it to flavor my plain yogurt.

Filling:
4 pounds peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced (Do yourself a favor and blanche them for 20 seconds first. It makes them SO much easier to peel!)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 TBSP cornstarch (original recipe called for 3 TBSP, but 2 might do the trick)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

All you do is toss the sliced peaches with the rest of the ingredients and stir gently over medium heat until the peaches are cooked and the liquid thickened. Mine didn't really thicken much, but that's what I get for skimping on the cornstarch.

  

I let the filling cool before pouring it in the prebaked pie shell. Alternatively, you could combine the peaches and other ingredients and, instead of cooking on the stove, put the filling in an unbaked pie shell and bake everything at the same time in the oven. But, I was worried about this nut crust going all soggy, which it did after a day or so of assembly, so this isn't one to make ahead of time.

 

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Xylitol, Part 3

With my last wee bit of Xylitol left over from the 16 ounce bag Xylitol USA sent me, I made some chocolate and coconut... things. I wanted to call them cups, because I had visions of molding them in little paper candy cups, but that turned out to be a messy disaster. They still tasted good, though.

I planned to re-melt everything and try again, but I keep eating the broken up pieces, so I don't think that's going to happen. Instead, I'll just go ahead and post the recipe. A friend of mine actually told me how to make these, only her quantities just made a small amount. That's good in a way, because you can only eat what you have. Recipes yielding only a few servings can help prevent overindulgence. Still, I wanted to make these into bite-sized candies, so I made TWELVE TIMES the recipe. It's a good thing I did, too. In the process of trying to pour the melted chocolate into the candy cups, I spilled it everywhere, losing almost a third of it.

Anyway, the original recipe is: 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, 2 tablespoons cocoa powder, 1 teasppon Xylitol and 1 tablespoon of shredded coconut. Here's where I have to fess up and let you know that I used Angel Flake coconut because that's what I had on hand. Since it's sweetened, the chocolates I made aren't technically sugar free, but you can easily use whatever variety of coconut you want.

I'd also like to point out that I followed the same friend's advice and processed my Xylitol in a coffee grinder so that the grains would be finer. It worked, as you can see the difference below. I wish I had thought to do this when I made the meringues and peanut butter cookies, as that may have helped, but that's something to try later.

   

Chocolate Coconut Cups (as I made them)

24 Tbsp (1 1/2 cups) coconut oil, melted
24 Tbsp (1 1/2 cups) cocoa powder
12 tsp (1/4 cup) Xylitol
12 Tbsp (3/4 cup) shredded coconut

Melt the coconut oil, and then mix everything together. I poured the mixture into a gallon-sized ziploc bag, thinking it would be easiest to pipe the chocolate into the cups. Wrong. As soon as I cut the corner off the bag, the chocolate gushed out everywhere. Oops.

Here is a photo of my mini muffin pan all prepped with candy cup wrappers to mold the chocolate. Luckily, I have no pictures of the debacle that resulted from me trying to fill these things.

I did get a few chocolates that looked okay. There's major blooming and discoloration going on, and I'm not quite sure what's up with that. I didn't do any sort of tempering, so that may be it. If you have any ideas, let me know because it looks dreadful. Luckily, that doesn't affect the taste.

By the way, I also used the coffee grinder to chop the coconut into smaller pieces, but a food processor would work just as well for that. Here you can see what they look like inside. Yum!

Oh, and don't forget about the coupon code for Xylitol. Save 10% off your first order at www.emeraldforestxylitol.com with coupon code FIRST.

Xylitol, Part 2

I'm thinking that I should make meringues more often. They're naturally gluten free, low in fat, and relatively easy to make. I realize most meringue recipes call for quite a lot of sugar, so I decided to try making these Cocoa Meringue Kisses with Xylitol instead. For the sake of comparison, I also made the recipe with sugar. The results were rather interesting. Let me just point out that the original recipe tells you to dust the finished cookies with powdered sugar. I never got around to doing that. The cookies are more than sweet enough already, and that would have added sugar when I'm trying to make these sugar free.

Cocoa Meringue Kisses:

3 large (1/2 cup plus 1 Tablespoon) egg whites

1/2 cup Xylitol

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

pinch salt (not pictured, but I added it)

First, preheat your oven to 300 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift the cocoa powder, 1/4 cup of the Xylitol, and and salt into a small bowl. As you can see, the Xylitol crystals were too big to filter through my sieve, so I ended up combining everything well with a whisk.

Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks start to form, then gradually add in the remaining Xylitol. Beat until the mixture forms medium-firm peaks.

  

Slowly add the cocoa mixture, beating until stiff and glossy. I had no trouble with this step when using the Xylitol, despite the fact that I could tell the Xylitol wasn't really dissolving. But for some strange reason, when I reached this step using sugar, my meringue got pretty dang glossy, but it didn't firm up any more--in fact, it started looking slightly deflated so I quit mixing it. 

 

Drop meringues onto prepared cookie sheets, spacing cookies an inch apart. I piped mine with a tip #1M in the corner of a gallon ziploc bag.


  
I used a tall plastic tumbler to hold the bag open for me.

 

Bake 25-40 minutes depending on how chewy/crisp you want them to be, and then allow them to cool completely. Here you can see the difference. The cookies made with sugar are on the left, and the ones made with Xylitol are on the right. Remember in my previous post how I said that Xylitol has a tendency to dry everything out? Well, this is very noticeable with this recipe.

When made with sugar, these cookies are meant to be eaten right away, as they go chewy after a while. The Xylitol caused the texture of these meringues to be way off initially--they were more like eating styrofoam or  a dry sponge--but, after a few days in the refrigerator they were more like a crispy meringue. The Xylitol meringues also got a little over browned, even though I baked them for less time than the recipe made with sugar. Overall, they came out okay, but I think they were way too sweet, and I could still detect just the slightest aftertaste.

  

The meringues made with sugar were softer and didn't hold their shape quite as well, but they tasted better and had the right texture. They did go very chewy after a day or so, as warned, but I didn't mind as that gave them more of a brownie-like mouthfeel. Also, I could taste more cocoa and less sweetness with these.

  

I'm wondering what would happen if I substituted half the sugar for Xylitol. That would still lower the glycemic index and calorie count, and maybe it would keep them from going quite so chewy while at the same time maintaining more of a true meringue texture. I would try it, except I have other plans for the last bit of Xylitol left in the bag that Xylitol USA sent me. If you decided to try this recipe with half sugar and half Xyltiol, please let me know how the cookies come out.

Oh, and don't forget about the coupon code! Save 10% off your first order at www.emeraldforestxylitol.com with coupon code FIRST.

Mud Pie: Gluten-Free Chocolate Tart Topped With Almond Pastry Cream

Have I mentioned how much I love the Whole Foods recipe iPhone app? My most recent experiment was based on the Apricot Tart in Quinoa-Almond Crust recipe I found on there, which is also available on the website.

I had some leftover quinoa flour I needed to use up, so this seemed like a good recipe to try. Of course, I was missing a few of the key ingredients, namely evaporated cane juice and apricots, so instead I made some ganache with coconut milk and dark chocolate for the tart filling and used the pastry cream as a topping. I'm always in the mood for chocolate.

It worked out pretty well, except I used Rapadura to make the pastry cream in lieu of evaporated cane juice, and it gave the pastry cream a horrible greenish-brown mud color. So I called it a mud pie. I don't have step-by-step photos for this recipe because I made the ganache and pastry cream after dark, ad you guys already know about the lighting issues in my kitchen. Plus, how the heck am I supposed to take pictures while making pastry cream? That stuff requires both hands and due attention. Anyway, here is the recipe as I made it.

For the crust:
1 cup quinoa flour
1/2 cup almond flour (I used Honeyville)
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into small pieces
1 egg yolk

Place quinoa flour, almond flour, sugar, xanthan gum, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Add butter and process until the mixture resembles coarse meal, 8 to 10 seconds.

 

At which point, mine looked like the photo on the left, so I processed it  a few more seconds, until it looked like the picture on the right.

  

Add egg yolk and pulse until dough holds together, without being wet or sticky. That's what the recipe says, anyway, but mine stayed a little sticky.

  

Flatten dough into a disk on a sheet of wax paper, then wrap it up and let it chill for at least an hour.

 

When well chilled, roll dough into a 12-inch round on a lightly floured surface (I used what little quinoa flour I had left for this). The dough was still a bit sticky and tricky to work with, and I had trouble with it falling apart as I tried to put it in my 9-inch loose-bottomed tart pan, so I ended up pressing it in the pan. It then needs to chill for another 30 minutes before baking at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, or until bottom is dry and tart shell is golden brown. The recipe says to prick the bottom with a fork, which I did, but I didn't use any pie weights. Allow crust to cool completely before adding filling.

While it's cooling, you can make the ganache and pastry cream. The ganache is easy, just melt a bag of dark chocolate chips, I used Ghirardelli 60%, add a can of coconut milk, and stir until smooth. Let it chill in the refrigerator, and it will thicken up nicely.

The pastry cream is a little more involved, but well worth the effort. I used:
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup Rapadura
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon pure almond extract
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter

Over medium heat, stir almond milk and 2 tablespoons of the Rapadura in a small saucepan until it starts to simmer. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, remaining Rapadura, and cornstarch until pale yellow. Slowly add half of almond milk to egg-yolks, whisking constantly. This tempers the egg yolks so they won't curdle. Pour everything back into the saucepan. Still working over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil while whisking constantly. Once the mixture comes to a boil, continue whisking vigorously until it thickens, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir in almond extract and butter. Allow it to cool completely. Like I said, my pastry cream isn't the most appetizing color, so I think next time I may try making this recipe with maple syrup instead of the Rapadura.

When everything is cooked, baked, and cooled--in my case the following morning so I could have enough light to take photos--then fillings can be added to the tart crust. Since the chocolate was a lot thicker and heavier than the pastry cream, I spread that on the shell first, then added the pastry cream as a topping. Yum.

  

Here are more photos of the crust and filling once the tart had chilled for a while after the final assembly. Apart from the odd color of the pastry cream, I'm really happy with how this recipe came out. The crust is more like a cookie base than a flaky pastry, as one would expect with a fruit tart, which this was intended to be. The pastry cream is light and sweet, very similar in consistency to pudding, and the chocolate is awesome.

  

I won't lie, the quinoa flour does leave a bit of its flavor behind. It's not so much an aftertaste as more of a flavor undertone, but if you didn't know the quinoa flour was in there you might not even notice it. I'm glad I tried this recipe, as I think the crust could be used with a variety of sweet fillings. I may try it again with a different flour and see how it does.