Cornbread

Super quick bread

Fresh bread, home baked, in less than an hour? It must be some hocus-pocus with lots of weird chemicals!

And yet, it isn’t. You can mix bread dough in five minutes and bake it in a frying pan in half an hour. There are some magically quick breads around and this is one of them.

Cornbread, even though it’s of North American origin, is probably the closest relation to Irish soda bread. Both are raised on chemical leavening agents, can be cooked in a frying pan and are extremely easy to bake. Even a complete novice baker will manage them easily.

Cornbread history lesson

It is a peculiar geographical link to draw though because cornbread is originally Native American. Corn or maize as it’s also known was originally the prevalent grain crop in North America, and it in fact remains the most common crop on the Earth.

In the early days cornmeal, ground dried corn kernels, was simply mixed with water and cooked in the hearth or over fire. When the first European settlers came to America, it took them a long while to manage to grow wheat, the cereal crop they knew, so they naturally used cornmeal and ate cornbread.

Even when wheat took off in the New World, most of it was exported to Britain so corn remained the faithful staple. Cornbread gradually became enriched with milk, eggs and sweeteners, to resemble what they bake in North America today.

Why does it have to be so sweet?

It is nice, pleasantly gritty and marvellously easy to bake but Europe has not adopted it as happily as burgers or milkshakes. That’s because, even though bread is an inherently savoury food, cornbread is one of the dishes (sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, I’m looking at you!) that Americans inexplicably load with sugar.

The reason for that might lie with the industrial steel mills replacing traditional stone grinding, overheating sweetcorn kernels and lessening their quality and sweetness (hence, cornbread rather than sweetcorn bread, haha). Nevertheless, they are known for the sweet tooth over the ocean – and it doesn’t agree with European palates.

A little sugar enhances the flavour of many dishes, so I include a tablespoon in my recipe, adapted from Mark Bittman at New York Times Cooking but the original has up to half a cup in it – which in my books is just wrong. It’s bread not cake, nor even one of those cakes they call ‘bread’, like banana.

How to make cornbread batter?

It is batter rather than dough as it’s very runny. That’s because cornmeal absorbs a lot of liquid as it bakes, so the mix is at first very sloppy.

It’s simple, like making muffins: dry ingredients, then wet ingredients and stir them together.

Because it’s runny, there’s no shaping of a loaf: the batter needs a pan or a tin to be contained. I like the cast iron pan method: melting butter until it is foaming and the pan is hot, then pouring in the batter which starts crispening in a lovely way straight away.

The bread then goes into the oven for about half an hour until it’s golden brown, crisp around the sides and passes the skewer test.

Can you reheat cornbread?

Because it’s made so quickly, it goes stale as fast: there’s no long fermentation that preserves moisture in the crumb.

It’s delicious straight from the oven, cooled down only so you don’t burn your fingers and/or mouth. Any leftovers, if not eaten on the day, are best frozen and reheated or defrosted in the oven.

I have not yet tried the truly British approach to it i.e. toasting slices, but be my guest and let me know in comments how it went.

But it’s not a hard task to polish it off on the day, with some tasty chilli, soup, stew or a warm salad.

More easy bread recipes

Basic white bread, a simple sandwich loaf made at home is miles better than any shop bought bread. Try it once, you’ll be converted.

Lazy bread is the easiest bread, next to no effort involved. This lazy bread ferments over 18 hours for flavour but it’s a no-knead, no-shape lazy loaf.

This is an easy recipe for pita bread. It's called pita or pitta, depending on where you are. Reasonably healthy, especially if you mix in some wholemeal flour, but of course it all depends on the filling.

More cornmeal recipes

Blueberry cornmeal shortbread tart from Alison Roman, slightly tweaked, is the best pie/tart/cobbler for the summer season. And no soggy bottom!

Cornmeal, bacon and sweetcorn muffins. These savoury cornmeal and bacon muffins are a great breakfast or brunch food, with the double corn content: cornmeal or polenta in the mix and sweetcorn added in.

Cornmeal shortbread with lemon flavour, meltingly tender and gluten free. Cut your favourite cookie shapes, bake till barely coloured and dip in your tea for a classic dunking experience!