Sourdough Cornbread

This recipe is fairly simple. I made my own sourdough starter and I began it about a week ago. Starter is a fermented product of flour and water that converts the carbohydrates in the mix into carbon dioxide and it’s a product of wild yeasts and some bacteria.

I’m not going to go full bore into explaining the making a sourdough starter because it can be a truly extensive process. Or — it can be fairly simple. It just depends on how much time you want to invest into your bread. My starter began as rye flour and water, and the cornbread ended up being mixed with starter discard. My corn was ground from a non-hybrid heirloom type of red cornbread ended up grown organically. I’m old school southern and we usually grind out corn to make meal as is. However….. I’ve discovered that I’d the dried corn is soaked in hydrated lime water, this process can remove the outer hardened hulls of the kernels and it makes more of the nutrients in the corn itself more biologically available. The process is called nixtamalization and the ancient Aztecs and Mayans figured this out. It’s a way to make the dried corn easier to grind into cornmeal, and the various nutrients become easier for people to absorb.

My starter began as rye flour and water, and the cornbread ended up being mixed with starter discard.

Sourdough batter

Let’s get into this recipe:

1 cup sourdough starter

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup unbleached flour

1/4 cup maple syrup or honey

2 medium eggs

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp sea salt

Preheating the pan

While the starter is rising just before baking, preheat a cast iron skillet to 350*F. This hot preheat actually sets the crumb of the cornbread and makes a crispy crust.

Batter in the pan

Instructions:

Mix the starter, buttermilk, cornmeal, and flour

Cover and let this sit on the kitchen counter for anywhere from 8 - 12 hours

Whisk together the syrup, buttermilk, eggs, and salt

Stir the wet ingredients into the sour batter

Pour the batter into a greased preheated skillet

Bake 35 minutes until done…. Check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the middle and seeing if it comes out clean

Fresh baked

The cornmeal doesn’t have gluten protein in it, but the wheat flout does. You won’t get a thick rise out of this mix, but the flavor is phenomenal.

Red cornbread

Red corn ground into meal makes a very dark reddish-brown loaf of cornbread. This looks pretty different than what you generally consider "normal" — using bright yellow corn.

Slice of cornbread

I absolutely LOVE this stuff. There’s nothing in the way of extra sugars except the small amount of maple syrup or honey. The tangy flavor with the nuttiness taste of organic red corn and a very subtle hint of sweetness is hard to explain. You simply have to try this for yourself.