Cornbread Challenge: Red Sox Cornbread

Brian and I announced this cornbread challenge in our first podcast, released last week. Representing the north, I was tasked with making northern, better known as yankee cornbread. Born a Mets fan, and now living in Red Sox Nation, I couldn't bring myself to title the post Yankee Cornbread. Cue the ingredients.

That's a lot of ingredients. Close to the max I've used in any recipe thus far. That being said, with the exception of maybe the cornmeal, these are all things you probably have in your house already. Fancy that, it's as if the recipe were made for the site.

Northern cornbread is the cornbread you probably remember growing up. Light, fluffy, sweet and moist. If you had blindfolded me, I doubt I could have told you whether this was cornbread or a corn muffin. ProTip: You can use this recipe for corn muffins.

This is another one of those shamefully simple recipes. I can't imagine that it'd be worth it to buy a mix for how quick this is. Pre heat the oven to 400, mix all the dry ingredients together. Then add in the wet ingredients.

Wisk it all together, then pour into a 9" round pan and throw it in the oven for 20-22 minutes. Then pull this beauty out.

A couple of things, now. Start pre-heating the oven before you start to mix the ingredients. It goes together so quickly that if you start the oven when you start mixing, it won't be near hot enough to bake properly. Also, since you have the cornmeal out anyway, dust the bottom of the pan with some before you pour in the batter. Ideally, this will keep the cornbread from sticking to the pan.

Now, I've never baked the cornbread without doing this, so I can't be sure that it will help. But it certainly doesn't hurt. I realize this is poor scientific method, but it is delicious. Also, be careful taking it out of the oven. I dropped it on the table a little too hard, and the middle collapsed a little. It was a shame. A tasty, extra dense shame. Let's cut to the last shot.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour (140g)

1 cup yellow cornmeal (170g)

2/3 cup sugar (130g)

1 tsp salt (6g)

1 tablespoon baking powder (13g)

1 large egg (weight varies)

1 cup milk (250g*)

1/3 cup canola oil (72g)

Procedure:

Preheat the oven to 400F, 20 minutes before you start mixing

Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl

Add the wet ingredients and mix until it's throughly mixed.

Dust a 9" round pan with cornmeal and pour in the batter

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick, poked into the cornbread comes out dry.