Ultimate Cornbread

I am pleased to share this recipe with you. (With much extra rambling!) Not only is it very good, but it's also fairly healthy! I got it from the Real Food Living's Real Food Digest, which I'm not sure exists anymore. It was an email loop thing, and later a yahoo group. About using whole/real foods. Whole grains. Natural sugars. Stuff like that.



ANYway, we've always liked this corn bread. Even ParticleMan, who likes sweet 'candy' Jiffy Mix cornbread most of all. ;-) Don't go looking for that box of Jiffy Mix**, because I'm making up that title, sweet candy cornbread. Because it's so sweet. You know? Jiuffy doesn't really make one called that. But this whole food recipe is sweet enough.

Plus, it's great because, if you eat strict vegetarian (um, except for the honey) you can use flax seed to replace the egg and butter, and it's still good! Or you can make it with those things, and it's still good! Or you can mix and match your healthy choices, and it's still good! And if you eat strict vegan, not even honey, you could use agave nectar. I'm just sayin'.

Oh, so the recipe is written assuming you've got your grain mill and whole grains and are milling it fresh for the recipe. Which I did for awhile, until my grain mill choked on a popcorn seed and I found out that it's lifetime warranty doesn't help much if the company goes out of business. So now I (gasp!) buy store bought cornmeal and store bought flours and, hey, it's good enough for us, for now. I do want to say that the King Arthur brand "white whole wheat"* is quite good, for store bought whole wheat. Yeah yeah, I know it's healthier to mill your own. Enough already, on with the recipe.

Ultimate Corn Bread

If you want to make it in a skillet (corn pone, if you're in the South):

1/2 C. honey
2 eggs **or** ~2 T. ground flax seed
1 tsp. salt
1 C. whole wheat flour (try freshly ground pastry wheat) - you can sub AP flour if you'd like
2 C. yellow cornmeal (try freshly ground popcorn seeds)
1 TBSP baking powder
1 TBSP butter, melted ** or ** ~4.5 T ground flax seed
1 1/2 C. milk or buttermilk or rice milk

Or if you love it and want to make MORE in a 9x13 pan:

3/4 C. honey
3 eggs **or** ~3 T. ground flax seed
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 C. whole wheat flour (try freshly ground pastry wheat)
3 C. yellow cornmeal (try freshly ground popcorn)
1 1/2 TBSP baking powder
1 1/2 TBSP butter, melted ** or ** ~4.5 T ground flax seed
2 1/4 C. milk or buttermilk or rice milk

or just double it.

Beat eggs together then beat in honey, melted butter and milk. Sift flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt together. Stir into wet ingredients until well-mixed. Spread into oiled or buttered 10" or 12" skillet or the larger recipe in a 9 X 13 inch pan -- Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes (maybe a little longer in the 9x13 pan). Serve hot, with extra honey to drizzle!

I cooked mine 25 minutes in my heavy skillet for this latest batch, and used eggs, rice milk, and ground flax instead of the butter.

secret tip for even sweeter cornbread: notice that in the original recipe the honey + milk = 2 cups:
add a little more honey than the 1/2 cup, and add milk up to 2 cups *total* for those two liquids :-)

You can make it with all purpose flour instead of whole wheat, but it's really good (and not 'whole wheaty' WITH the whole wheat, so why not go for one step healthier?)

*White whole wheat flour is whole wheat. It's made from white wheat instead of read wheat berries, so it's lighter in both color and flavor. Many of the nutrients are lost quickly after milling, but it's still a little healthier than all purpose flour. Store it in the freezer to keep it as fresh as you can.

**Did you know Jiffy Mix is from Michigan? I didn't. But now I do. And so do you!