Recipe for "Coming Home" Cornbread

 

When you’re away from your homestead, returning home after time away often means you’ve got a lot of catching up to do!

After being out of town for two weeks to look after family—a week longer than I’d planned—I discovered it wasn’t only the neglected garden that was in disarray. Tasks like cleaning the chicken coop and culling the mid-fall harvest needed serious attention.

Inside the house, unopened mail had piled up, and the kitchen needed a good once-over. But I’m pretty prompt about keeping our fridge food up to date. 

With the idea of good food = good health, John and I focus on buying organic, locally- or USA grown—which, let’s face it, really does cost more. And while we try to avoid wasting, once in a while some items will get away from us.

One of those high quality foods I indulge in is full-fat Greek yogurt. Since we don’t shop for groceries very often, we purchase the largest carton this particular brand comes in. In my rush to leave, I’d left an opened carton behind, and John didn’t think to eat it.

This brand has no additives, so it’s more perishable than most. The carton states: “After opening, consume within 5 days.”

I eat yogurt every day, so that first morning home I pulled out the carton.  It had been open at least two and a half weeks. I was sure it wasn’t really spoiled; after all, most food companies tend to provide very conservative “Best by” dates. So I tentatively ate a spoonful.

It wasn't soured, but still…off. With a definite vinegary taste. I briefly considered tossing it, but that would be wasting at least $2 or $2.50 worth of yogurt.

There are plenty of ways you can use up old-ish yogurt—especially with coffee cakes and quick breads. I could have made one of our favorites—maybe “Blueberry Buckle” (see the recipe in my August posts) or pumpkin bread.

But I had what felt like a million things to catch up on. Dinner was already running late, and I wasn’t up for a somewhat involved baking project that would mean a lot of clean-up too.

I also had one of our eggs I’d forgotten about and left out of the fridge for a day. It was totally fine—farm eggs will keep without refrigeration longer than you’d think, but I felt I should use it pronto.

Why not, I asked myself, make cornbread?

I’d recently bought some organic stone-ground cornmeal and cornbread is super fast to make—no fruit to process, or cans to open then rinse out. Plus with only one bowl to wash, clean-up is quick too.

Now in my experience, homemade cornbread can be pretty dry. It’s lacking additives like gums and dough conditioners that are in commercial cornbread mixes. Still, I figured cornbread would be a great way to used up that yogurt, and if it didn't work out too well, John is a really good sport about eating my less than yummy food experiments!

When you use a fermented product like yogurt in your quick breads/cakes, keep in mind that the yogurt will add acid to the recipe. So you counteract that extra acid with a little baking soda (an alkaline).

A lot of cornbread recipes call for 2 ½ teaspoons or 1 tablespoon of baking powder. I knew with using this much yogurt, I’d have to take a guess regarding reducing the baking powder and adding baking soda.

Here’s what a came up with:

Cornbread—With Yogurt

*1 cup cornmeal

*1 cup mixed organic unbleached white flour and whole wheat pastry flour

Combine the flours with:

*½ teaspoon salt

*1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

*½ teaspoon soda + another pinch

*1/3 cup organic cane sugar

In a separate bowl I mixed:   

*1 large egg (the one sitting out)

*1/3-ish cup olive oil

And here’s where I took a chance:

*I added 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt—all the old yogurt from the carton + a splash of whole milk

I mixed all the liquids:the oil, egg and yogurt and milk, then put in the dry ingredients.

The batter wasn’t really batter at all, but dough! Meaning very dry and stiff. Clearly, the recipe needed more liquid.

So I splashed in more whole milk. Still stiff.

Then another generous splash.

Again, the dough was still pretty stiff. It seemed like the milk I’d added was the same amount I would have used even without the yogurt! I decided to just go with what I had.

I scraped the dough into an oiled 7” x 11” glass baking pan, smoothed it into the corners, and put it into the oven at 370 degrees—I usually bake cornbread at 350, but like I said, dinner was late.

After 25 minutes, it looked really done on top—but that was an unusually fast baking time. I was afraid the cornbread would be kind of wet in the middle.

I tested it, and happily, the cornbread was baked all the way through. I gave it a couple more minutes, then pulled the pan from the oven.

The cornbread was darker on top than I generally prefer—I think the cream in the yogurt makes baked goods brown more readily. But John, who likes well done baked goods, was enthusiastic.

After it cooled for 15 minutes or so, I cut us each a generous piece. Despite the well-browned top, this was the moistest, most delectable cornbread I’d ever made—crispy around the edges, but totally melt-in-your-mouth.

So...lesson learned: I’ll be using lots of yogurt in my quick breads!

While I was away, I missed doing my usual once-a-week posts. But now I’ll be back to my regular Thursday postings!