SW: Cornbread (Guest Post)

I know, the guest posts this week were a BIG, awesome surprise. You know what's ALSO a surprise, even to me? This particular guest post! Last night, my friend John offered, and I accepted and then made him seal an oath with blood because not only did I want this recipe, but sharing it with you was almost as important. (Hey, I'm an honest girl!)

I'm really stoked to have a homemade bread post, mostly because I feel soup REQUIRES bread, and while store-bought can be okay, homemade makes the soup-eating experience magical. This cornbread is oh-so-yummy and compliments several (if not all) of the recipes I'm featuring this week. I had it with Sarah's black bean soup, and I let my dearest husband have the rest of it with our lentil soup.

Oh, and before I go any further, yes, you're welcome!

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Cornbread
Guest Post from John! 

Cornbread is one of those battleground foods that even good friends
argue over. Sweet or savory? Moist and cake-y or dry and firm? Thin or
thick? Coarse or fine ground meal? Cast iron or glass? Baked or grilled?
Bacon fat or butter? Fresh corn kernels or not? So many choices! So many
versions to try with different soups!

This version is sweet and moist, but can be modified if desired. Try
reducing the sugar and adding a small amount of finely chopped chiles,
for example. Or try a mixture of coarse and fine meal. (If you use a
coarse grind like polenta, soak it overnight and press out the water
before adding to the flour mixture.) The recipe is based on, but modifed
from, one by my favorite "bread head", Peter Reinhart, from his book
Crust and Crumb. Note that ingredients in ounces are by weight, not
volume.

Ingredients

8 oz corn meal (I use 4oz medium and 4oz fine grind)
8 oz All-purpose flour
1 1/2 TB baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

4 oz brown sugar
2 TB honey
2 TB melted butter
3.5 oz eggs (approx 2 med/lg)
12 oz sour cream
3 oz fresh/frozen corn kernels (optional)

Procedure

1. Melt butter in a small mixing bowl and incorporate honey until
dissolved

2. Whisk together meal, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, soda, and
salt in a large bowl

3. Whisk eggs and sour cream in a medium bowl

4. Incorporate butter/honey mixture into egg / sour cream mixture

5. Combine liquid mixture with flour mixture in the large bowl

6. Fold in corn kernels (if using)

7. Spread the very stiff batter in a 9 x 13 in. glass baking dish

8. Bake at 350 deg F for 45-50 min until a tester comes out clean. The
top should be medium to dark brown


Bonus for bread heads: here is the baker's % formula so you can scale
this up for large parties, make muffins, or just make multiple pans and
freeze for future soup weeks.

50% Corn meal
50% AP
4.7% Baking powder
0.5% Baking soda
1.6% Salt
25% Brown sugar
9.4% Honey
6.2% Butter
20.8% Eggs
75% Sour cream
18.7% Fresh/frozen corn kernels

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John is the best baker I have ever met. Ever. I want him to quit his boring day job and either open a bakery or start his own TV baking show. (I go back and forth with TV show name ideas. Right now I'm favoring Muffin Man John, so that I can say “I DO know the muffin man!”) Of course, I will get free baked goods because I helped provide the inspiration for his new career. Besides baking, John does a lot of other cooking (also amazing) and has one of my favorite libraries ever. His taste in fiction is spot-on. He is married to the brilliant Sarah, who was sweet enough to provide one of Soup Week's guest recipes. Finally, let me just say, if you do not try this recipe, you will regret it for the rest of your life!