Saturday 19 March 2011

Corn Bread Turtle-style!

D'you remember the wonderful parcel I received recently, from a certain DebTurtle

It had Sweeties!!

And some Cornmeal, with a recipe to try out my very own American-style Cornbread!

So, today I did just that. 


I found the recipe and cornmeal,

 got my ingredients together,

and also my equipment - don't you love my Cup Measures? So cute! 

I measured out my 1 Cup of Cornmeal

This part is strange for me - here in U.K. we generally write / measure recipes by weight or liquid measures, rather than cups-full (or part-cups).  It seemed strange to put my cornmeal, flour etc into those little cup things. 

All the dry ingredients in the bowl.

I then mixed up the "wet" ingredients in a jug; again it seemed strange to measure the liquids in cups (except the egg, which is 1 Egg in any "language"!).

The other odd thing was using vegetable oil, instead of margarine or butter.  In U.K. we generally use a solid fat in our baking recipes, or sometimes a softer "tub margarine", which is still solid, but has been softened already.  Margarine is a mixture of vegetable fats (sometimes with animal fats too), which stays fairly hard at fridge temperature and needs to be beaten quite hard to soften it (or put in the microwave for a short while - but don't tell Delia!). So I have very few recipes that use liquid fats, so this was an interesting experiment for me!

Once it was all mixed together, the batter/mixture went into the tin,

then into the oven at 200 degrees Celsius (same as Deb's 400F!). 

It came out looking a bit brownish on top, with a slightly crusty surface - like bread or scones. I let it cool for a while,

then I cut it into pieces.

We had Hungarian Goulash (sort-of!) for dinner tonight, with rice and a nice sun-dried tomato bread, from the Italian deli. stall at the Farmers'/Local Produce Market that is held at the local garden centre once a month.  It seemed a good chance to try out our interesting new food, so I put pieces of Corn Bread in the dish, along with the warm bread slices. 

We put butter on some of it and dunked it in the paprika & tomato sauce with our stew. 

It was yummy!

This one's definitely a "keeper"! 

I made this batch without sugar, as I wanted a plain, savoury bread.  Next time I will use a little sugar.  I think I'll also use my slightly smaller square pan, as the bread was a bit thin and dry - I think it will be moister and nicer if it's in a smaller pan and can be in deeper chunks!

So, thanks Deb - it was fun. X

17 comments:

  1. For a sweet version of cornbread, we mix it with yellow cake batter (two parts cornbread, one part cake batter). This makes it much more moist. We then top it with butter and honey! It is delicious alongside tea.

    P.S. I think the US measuring system is weird too, and I live there! I'm used to it, but it seems like the amounts for the system are arbitrary. The metric system makes so much more sense.

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  2. Yum! Good ol' DebTurtle and her care packages :-)

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  3. Oh Mel - "care packages" - you are sooo cheeky! But they are definitely "caring packages"!

    Thanks for the idea Megan - but I don't know what "yellow cake batter" is... Still, I think adding sugar will be nice, especially with butter and honey!

    I am having corn bread with left-over stew for my lunch tomorrow...

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  4. In Australia we are metric measurers but we often do use the cups system for cooking and baking as well, it does get confusing. I have noticed quite a trend towards using liquid oils/fats as well, again quite common here now too.

    I would assume that 'yellow cake batter' would be a butter cake packet mix? I always find the north American mix of sweet and savory VERY strange, it is the combinations that I can't get my head around, you know, like maple syrup drizzled over your eggs and bacon - erm, no thanks! But, that is coming from the girl who grew up on vegemite ... perhaps I should just be quiet now! ;-)

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  5. Bravo on trying something new.
    Rinda

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  6. Hee hee, I don't understand what Aussie "butter cake" is either, unless it's the plain cake we call "madeira"! I would think it's some sort of plain cake mix - all countries must have them, even if we give them different names.
    It's odd that most of my blog friends speak "English", yet there are so many variations, depending on where you live; we all bake and cook similar recipes, but we give them different names, measure the ingredients in different ways and even have different types for the same ingredient.
    The world is a fascinating and varied place, full of such amazing people! I'm so lucky to have friends from different places, who are tolerant and interested enough to celebrate our differences without judging (well except about the syrup vs vegemite perhaps, he he!)

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  7. I like a sweet cornbread. My favorite though is corn pudding, sweet & creamy yet textured. Sweet cornbread with spicy, flavorful BBQ ribs is awesome!

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  8. Looks great - and the replies are very interesting too. Envying you those cinnamon hearts ...

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  9. It does look nice!

    Random historical fact - during the Potato famine a lot of aid sent consisted of cornmeal which the Irish couldnt digest (or so the story goes) and it killed more of them than it cured...

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  10. Oh how fun! I haven't had cornbread in ages, but now I've got a craving.

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  11. Gotta love cornbread! I'll have to try your recipe.

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  12. It's Deb's recipe - follow this link for the original post:
    http://paperturtle.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-old-fashioned-cornbread-its-best.html

    :-)

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  13. I found you through BFS. What an entertaining post. I am a sociologist by trade and love to hear these cross-cultural things. I'm curious, do scrapbookers who normally use the metric system, use the metric system in scrapbooking? Or do you have to rely on the U.S. measuring system since so much of the product is produced in the U.S.?

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  14. Hi Lizzie ~ Thanks so much for letting me know about your post. I'm sorry I didn't see it sooner - I am far behind on my blog reading these days!

    I'm so happy that you tried my recipe! Lately I've been using melted butter in my recipe, but I've found that the cornbread is really dry that way. Hence, when I wrote your recipe card I indicated vegetable oil as the original recipe calls for. And when my mom makes it she uses half the amount of sugar called for in the recipe because she doesn't like it sweet, but I find that the recipe NEEDS just a little sweetness to it.

    It's funny for me to hear you talk about not being used to the measuring cups as I have never known any other way. :o)

    Thanks for posting this, Lizzie. I'll have to tell my mom that you tried the recipe... xo

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  15. I think you are a brave young woman to try not only a new recipe, but a "foreign" one! Converting our measuring systems would be a challenge I probably wouldn't even tackle so hat's off to you, Lizzie! The cornbread looks yummy and got me to thinking--maybe tonight???

    Marti - Mom to Deb@PaperTurtle

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  16. Hello Stephanie, nice to meet you - I dropped by your blog and left you a comment!

    Hey Deb and Marti, glad you like the post about your cornbread! I think, Deb, that I would prefer it with just a little sugar - though I ate a bit this afternoon, which I'd drizzled with honey, then warmed up in the microwave - it was yummy!!
    Marti, I found those "American" cup measures in a local shop last year; I bought them because lots of bloggers were posting recipes and I wanted to try them. In the end, I didn't use them until I tried Deb's recipe, so it was a bit strange for me; but food is food, right? It was good cornbread!

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  17. Thanks for sharing this post with me Lizzie! I'll do a similar one I think when I make the cakes!

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