mix, mix…stir, stir

If The Cornbread Gospels missed your radar when it was released two years ago, you need to circle back around and catch this book. I picked up a copy because I flat-out love cornbread. Well actually, I love corn in all forms, including candy. You might question the value of an entire book devoted to this simple, comforting food; I was skeptical too, at first.

The Cornbread Gospels by Crescent Dragonwagon is deeper than a collection of recipes; it’s also a collection of stories reflecting our American culture and cultures the world over. The recipes are great, but it’s the stories that grabbed me, they feel important. How could they not, when the story of cornmeal in this country begins with providing desperately needed sustenance to the first settlers, slaves, and Civil War soldiers?

Thirded Colonial Cornbread with wheat and rye flours and molassas

It’s the deep-rooted, passionate, regional differences in cornbread that make it so interesting. Crescent Dragonwagon dives into all of it sharing interesting lore and history to anchor the recipes in context. She also nails down the often confusing lexicon of cornbread, for example, what’s a babycake vs. a muffin, or a johnnycake vs. a jonnycake. Rhode Island actually has a state regulation defining what exactly qualifies as a “jonnycake” without an “h” compared to one with. Talk about deep-rooted and passionate!  Along with her personal cornbread stories she shares an entertaining collection of cornbread related quotes and stories from a numerous characters she met during her six year cornbread odyssey.

New Spain-Style Corn Pudding with corn kernels, goat cheese, pablano chiles, scallions and a hint of cinnamon

Recipes in The Cornbread Gospels travel the globe illustrating just how worldly this humble grain is. There are Mexican, Colombian, Portuguese, Greek, and even South African recipes in the book. In addition to numerous regional cornbreads there are recipes for pancakes, waffles, yeasted breads, spoonbreads, steamed breads, and desserts. There is also a chapter dedicated to using leftover cornbread that starts with the wise advice to always make a double batch of cornbread so you have some leftovers.  If you’re like me and happy to serve cornbread as the main event, you will appreciate the “go-withs” chapter, filled with side dishes that compliment the star of the table.

Yankee "Spider" Cornbread with a Custard Layer

I have made oodles of recipes from this book and they have all been good, but the Yankee “Spider” Cornbread was thrilling. It self-generates a creamy custard layer that rests on top of the cornbread, but just below a crispy top crust. It’s remarkable and incredibly addictive. I have a difficult time not tucking flavor infusions into cream and milk, so I played around with this one a bit and infused the milk with a few sprigs of fresh sage to create a sage custard layer that was spectacular.

Blue, Blue, Blueberry Blue Corn Muffins

A few other favorites from the book are the Blue, Blue, Blueberry Corn Muffins which are light and tender with a delicate blue hue from the blue cornmeal. The “Thirded” Colonial Cornbread was a completely new and delightful experience. Thirding is apparently a technique the colonists used to stretch their precious wheat supplies, so this recipe uses cornmeal, rye flour, and wheat flour. The texture is soft and delicate and the addition of molasses gives it an irresistible flavor reminiscent of Boston Brown Bread. Miss Kay’s Dark Secret Cornmeal Cake is a perfect snack cake for any occasion and just as easy to make as a batch of cornbread. The addition of cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice give it a warm deep flavor that blends nicely with the dark secret – a touch of cocoa.  The Cornmeal-Oatmeal Cranberry-Orange loaf is a balance of sweet, tart, crunchy and tender. The cornmeal adds a layer of flavor and texture making it more satisfying than most quick-breads without being the least bit oily, a downfall of so many quick-breads. Crescent Dragonwagon was kind enough to share three recipes with us from The Cornbread Gospels so you can have a little taste of what awaits you in this gem of a book.

Blue, Blue, Blueberry Corn Muffins
Yankee “Spider” Cornbread with a Custard Layer
Cornmeal-Oatmeal Cranberry-Orange Loaf

Cornmeal-Oatmeal Cranberry-Orange Loaf

Besides the fact that The Cornbread Gospels is a wonderful book, how could you not want to read and cook from a book written by someone with such an intriguing name? Crescent Dragonwagon is also the author of Passionate Vegetarian, Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread, and Dairy Hollow House Cookbook, nine children’s books, and two novels. She teaches writing workshops, and blogs about cooking, eating, and writing at Nothing is Wasted on the Writer, where you can also read the story behind her unique name.

Rosemary Corn Crackers

You should also check out I Love Cornbread. It’s the international network for all things cornbread!

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe brings us back to the controversial topic of brownies. I fall squarely in the fudgy gooey rather than cakey brownie camp, and was curious where this week’s Brownie Buttons would land.

 Having tasted them, I am inclined to say they are of a cakey style, but admittedly this could be due to over baking them. The tiny molds bake up so quickly and though the thought briefly crossed my mind to shave a few minutes off of the baking time, I proceeded to set the timer for the suggested 14 minutes. When I pulled them out they looked over baked to me, and no surprise they were a bit dry.

It’s possible to determine what the likely end result of a recipe will be before investing the time and ingredients in making it by evaluating the ingredient ratios. Shirley Corriher talks about this in her books Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealedand BakeWise and Michael Ruhlman recently published a book devoted to the basic formulas of recipes. In his book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, he presents basic formulas rather than recipes by giving the ingredients in proportion to one another. The sourdough bread I just pulled from the oven was made using this method. He has a great post about this bread on his blog. Not to get too side tracked, but his post ties into the Two Sisters Bakery and their recent post on creating sourdough starter using red cabbage, which works like a charm. The bread I made was a ratio of 1 part sourdough starter, 1 part water, 2 parts flour and 1% of the total weight in salt.

 A few weeks ago Michael Ruhlman initiated a discussion on Facebook about the ratios for brownies and I was curious to know the ratio of my favorite brownie recipe to see how it compared to others. The Tuesdays with Dorie group has made a number of brownie recipes from the book and I thought it would be interesting to compare the ratios of the different recipes to see where the Brownie Buttons fall.

I based my calculations off the weight of the butter and consider a large egg to weigh 2 ounces.  My scale is not sensitive enough to measure the small amounts of salt and flavorings, and because they are so small I don’t think they have a significant impact on the texture of the brownies, so I am leaving them out of the equation. I will use my brownie recipe as an example of the calculations. My recipe uses 4 ounces of butter, which I considered to be 1 part. Given this,  the two ounces of unsweetened chocolate equates to 0.5 parts calculated by dividing 2 ounces (weight of the unsweetened chocolate)  by 4 ounces (weight of my base ingredient, butter). Two tablespoons of cocoa power is 2 ounces by weight, so it’s also 0.5 parts. One cup of flour weighs 5 ounces, so 1/3 cup is 1.66 ounces, which is then divided by 4 ounces to express this as a ratio of the butter, coming up with 0.42. A cup of sugar weighs 7 ounces, divided by 4 equals a ratio of 1.75. Two eggs weigh 4 ounces which is equal to the weight of the butter making it a 1 to 1 ratio. I did this for each of the different recipes basing the calculations off of the weight of the butter that each recipe calls for.

The results are a bit difficult to interpret because I am not accounting for the effect of the fat and sugar content of solid chocolate or the effect of cocoa powder, but there are a few parallels that are notable. My recipe and the Tribute to Katherine Hepburn recipe have nearly identical ratios and are indeed both fudgy gooey brownies.  The Classic Brownies are billed as a fudgy but not gooey. I would agree and I suspect the added fat from the solid chocolate is what keeps them from being cakey despite the much higher proportion of  flour, sugar and eggs. The French Chocolate Brownies were definitely cakey. I am surprised to see the proportion of flour is so low but maybe the cakey texture is due to the lower level of sugar or the added water and rum that I categorized as liquid.

So back to the brownie buttons. Looking at the ingredient ratio I am inclined to think that if I had only baked them for 11-12 minutes they would have been moist and lovely. They contain half the amount of egg, and a lot less sugar than my recipe, but there is additional sugar in the bittersweet chocolate. The flour seems to be in the middle of the pack, so I’d say they could go either way. Clearly I need to make another batch for research purposes.

The brownie buttons did have a really nice flavor twist from added orange rind. Though I would add zest from a whole orange rather than just half in the future. The flavor was bright and fresh in the batter, but once baked I couldn’t detect it. White chocolate is called for as the icing, but I was fresh out and instead used some cream cheese frosting I had tucked away in the freezer.

I didn’t realize how appropriate my little brownie analysis is until just now; Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen selected this week’s recipe! Though my analysis falls woefully short of anything truly scientific, it was interesting to me and I suspect this might just become a bit of an obsession that will soon involve complicated charts of dozens of different brownie recipes. I had better just stop now.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 86 recipes completed 135 to go!

The biggest surprise with this cake is the color. It went into the oven as a very pale yellow batter and came out looking like a chocolate cake, but still tasting very much like a lovely banana cake.

Cake plate by Boyd Sugiki and Lisa Zerkowitz of  Two Tone Studios

Good banana bread or cake requires one critical element-really ripe bananas. I refer to bake-ready bananas as spotty brown bananas because that’s exactly what they look like. A dark brown spotted peel conceals sweet ripe fruit that is too mushy to enjoy eating fresh, but just perfect for delivering a full banana flavor in baked goods. It’s rare that I ever find such spotty brown bananas in the store; in fact, it’s rare to even find bananas that are ready to eat. The good news is bananas can be frozen, so they can be on hand when a banana baking whim hits. On the rare occasion a banana manages to make it to the spotty brown stage before being eaten, I peel it and pop it in the freezer to have on hand for a baking project. Once thawed, they let off a lot of liquid, which I drain before using.

The banana bunt cake is this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie baking activity. I associate bundt cakes with having a texture much like a pound cake; slightly dense with a fine tight crumb, but this cake is quite light and delicate. I baked a large bundt cake, but had additional batter  and also  filled some individual bundt pans. I liked the little cakes better for two reasons. First, I think my large cake was a touch over baked so it was drier and not as tender. Second, while the cakes were still warm I dipped the minis in the sugar glaze rather than just drizzling the glaze on like I did with the large cake. The dipping method created a more significant glaze coating and biting into one of these petite bundts was just like biting into a glazed buttermilk doughnut. The set glaze crackled and broke apart to reveal a soft tender cakey interior. The mini bundts had a perfect crunchy coating to tender cake ratio that made them dangerously addictive.

When I mixed up this cake I was in a rum mood and added dark rum rather than vanilla to the batter. I also used dark rum and a little milk for the powdered sugar glaze. It worked really well with the banana flavor, but didn’t come off as overly boozy. Classic Banana Bundt Cake is another winner from the book. Thank you to Mary of The Food Librarian for the selection. She has the recipe posted on her blog if you happen to have some spotty brown bananas that are ready to be transformed into a delicious baked delight.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 85 recipes completed 136 to go!

Chef Jerry Traunfeld kicks off coriander month here at TableFare by sharing his love for this popular spice in our Spice Inspiration feature. If you aren’t already a fan of cooking with coriander this feature is a great introduction to why it is a favorite with so many people. 

To get you hooked on cooking with coriander, Chef Traunfeld shares two great recipes with us. The first one is Coriander Potato Soup it’s creamy, but still light and refreshing. The citrus notes of the coriander are highlighted by the addition of orange zest and the coriander seeds are toasted bringing out a warm nutty flavor in the spice that comes through at the finish of each bite. This is a perfect summer soup because it can be served hot or cold.

The orange zest is toasted right along with the coriander seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Shake the pan frequently to keep the seeds from burning and toast them until they are about two shades darker than when you started.

You can make this soup in one pot, with the exception of a skillet to toast the spices. It’s quick enough to make for a weeknight meal, but elegant enough to impress dinner guests.

What’sbetter than a freshly baked goodie first thing in the morning? These Coriander-Orange Scones are a perfect choice because they are easy to make and deliver fantastic flavor and aroma. The orange-coriander combination is a perfect balance with the currants adding a nice touch of fruity sweetness in each bite. The’re great as is, but it wouldn’t hurt anything to spread on a touch of real butter while they are still warm from the oven.

Check out the full Spice Inspiration feature and to learn more about coriander visit our Spice Library.