There is nothing more Thanksgiving to me than cornbread. I like to have it on my table every year or some sort of cornmeal or corn dish as a substitute. I didn’t have any clear idea of what I wanted to do this year with the cornbread. Last year I didn’t make cornbread because I had a corn pudding for breakfast. I regretted this at dinner time. So to make up for it, at Christmas I made the same cornbread I made in 2015. A wonderful recipe that uses brown butter and buttermilk. It’s perfectly moist, sweet and delicious.
So anyway I knew better than to skip the cornbread this year. I got the idea of making a cornmeal biscuit because I’m a bit obsessed with biscuits this year. (See my recent posts on biscuits and gravy.) I love the versatility of biscuits. You can dip them in soup. You can make a sandwich with them. You can sub them for an English muffin at breakfast. You can eat them with butter or honey. They taste delicious with gravy. And so on and so forth.
The recipe I chose was taken from Food Network. I modified the recipe slightly by increasing the sugar and decreasing the salt. Incidentally, I thought they could have been a bit sweeter but all-in-all I was very pleased with the results.
ingredients.
- 1 ⅓ c. all-purpose flour, plus as needed
- ⅔ c. yellow cornmeal
- 2 ½ tsp. baking powder
- ¼ tsp. baking soda
- 1 heaping T. sugar
- ½ tsp. fine salt
- 6 T. butter, diced
- ¾ c. buttermilk
directions.
- Set a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a medium-sized batter bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt. You may consider sifting the baking powder and baking soda. You don’t want clumps of either to end up in your biscuits because it tastes nasty to bite into a clump. Rub two tablespoons of the butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips, until it is completely pulverized. Work the remaining butter into the flour until you have even, pea-sizes pieces of butter. Gently stir in the buttermilk with a fork to make a loose dough.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Pat the dough into a 1/2-inch-thick rectangle using flour as you go; the dough will be sticky. Fold the dough in thirds (like a business letter). Now pat the dough into about a 5 by 8-inch rectangle with 3/4 inch thickness. Use a 2- to 3-inch round cutter to make 6 biscuits; put biscuits on the prepared baking sheet. Gather the scraps of dough and press together. Cut 2 more biscuits, and place them on the baking sheet.
- Bake until the tops are lightly browned, about 12 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly on a rack before serving.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 