I have a lot of anxiety about this issue. Is it not just The Rudest, to roll in here during this, the month that we ought to go ahead and call Abstain-uary, and wallpaper your mind with the idea of hot cornbread? It feels wrong, like a lefty shoe on a righty foot - but once the idea of cornbread is planted, it festers, and so here we are. I’m sorry! Happy new year! Let’s move on!
If this piccie ^ doesn’t speak for itself, allow me to step in: there is a case to be made for cornbread, right now. A lot of you, I know, look forward to this time of year as a time away from butter, from sugar, from gluten - and cornbread, I’m sorry, is a sad shadow of itself when made without. Good cornbread, then, feels initially unwelcome right now, to you, doesn’t it? It feels like more of the same: like more of the cookies and bars and tarts and rolls that traffic-jam the days between Thanksgiving and December 31st. It feels like more of what we’re trying to purge. The key exists, though, to a successful bedfellowship between January and cornbread, and let me share it with you: you’ve gotta let cornbread be the cheerleader.
Cornbread doesn’t want you to set your goals down. Cornbread wants you to eat that vegetable soup. Cornbread wants you to opt for a black coffee instead of a syrupy something-cino. Cornbread wants you to have that grain bowl for lunch. Cornbread improves your culinary outlook, however abstain-y or not it might be right now, because cornbread raises the stock of its neighbors by association. It improves everything that’s served beside it. Pasta e fagioli? Pretty good. Pasta e fagioli with cornbread? A party. See? Betterment by association. It’s got that Midas touch.
I’m (truly) not here to talk you out of your convictions: I’m not a food-resolution person, but I am an intuitive-eating person, and I hold space for all of the bodies and brains that whimper, “Eat some plants, please?!” every January. So if you’re staunchly eschewing any of the cornerstones of cornbread right now, I support you, even if I don’t join. But if there is room for discussion, then I encourage you to consider it, because I find myself even more excited for the plants when they come with a hot chunk of this as a sidecar. Cornbread encourages. Enjoy. xo.
Sweet Potato-Rye Cornbread Muffins
makes 9 large bakery-sized muffins | total time is < 30 minutes*
First, some science: Why does this work?
» Cornmeal is gluten-free, but a good cornbread actually requires some gluten to achieve an ideal crumb structure. Gluten is a protein that forms tight molecular chains, and those chains give the batter the strength it needs to support the tiny air pockets that form while baking - and those air pockets are important, because they make for a light, tender cornbread. Cornbread made without gluten can’t support the air pockets, and the result is really dense. All-purpose white wheat flour is most commonly used, but here, I call for rye flour for a couple of reasons: rye has less gluten than wheat, but still enough to support the weighty cornmeal, so it makes for an extra-tender specimen; rye flour can absorb a lot more water than wheat flour can, which results in a cornbread that’s more moist; and rye flour is whole-grain, which means that not only does it have a deeper flavor profile than white wheat flour, it also has almost 4x the fiber.
» Cornbread is a quickbread - a bread made with a leavening agent like baking soda and/or baking powder instead of yeast - which means that it can be baked immediately, without the need to wait for yeast to activate and do their thing. Other common quickbreads? Banana bread, and zucchini bread, and applesauce muffins, and carrot cake: things that bake up super plush because of the addition of fruit or vegetables, which impart moisture to the finished product. Here, I apply the same trick to cornbread, only I use sweet potato. It adds sweetness without refined sugar; it adds loads of fiber; the flavor profile marries beautifully with corn; and, if we may eat with our eyes for a moment, the color of cornbread made with sweet potato is just stunning - a really gorgeous tropical-sunset sort of hue that we could probably all use right now.
» The Muffins part is important. We’re baking this batter into muffins for two reasons: firstly, individual portions means no slicing into a square or round of cornbread - which means the interior of the cornbread doesn’t lose moisture due to air exposure, and therefore the leftovers last much longer. And secondly, a muffin pan maximizes surface area, which means every single serving has a ton of crispy-sweet crust.
» Most muffins are baked at 350F, but here, we’re going in at 425F, again for two reasons. The high-heat bake ensures that that you get a deeply browned crust in a muffin pan - no need to use a cast iron skillet to get that coveted crunch and color, so we get the aforementioned benefits of individual portions without sacrificing the caramelized exterior texture. What’s more, when you pop a muffin tin into a super-hot oven, the batter touching the walls of each cup sets very quickly, which provides a sturdiness and support structure that allows the batter in the center of the muffin to rise as high as possible. A domed muffin (rather than a flat-topped one) is a sign of maximum lift - a sign that your muffin got as airy and lofty (and light) as possible.
Ingredients
Dry:
165g rye flour (about 1 and 1/3 cups) - see Notes
200g cornmeal (1 cup) - any type or size grind is fine
65g corn flour (1/2 cup) - see Notes
125g of white sugar (about 1/2 cup plus 2 T)
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp fine-grained salt - like pink or sea
Wet:
275g of pureed cooked sweet potato (about 1 softball-sized sweet) - see Notes
4 T of butter, browned (or just softened, if you’re lazy and hate flavor)
3/4 cup of plain whole-milk yogurt - see Notes
1/4 cup of heavy cream - see Notes
3 whole eggs
1 T honey - see Notes
Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 425F, and place baking racks in the lower and upper thirds of your oven.
Butter (or otherwise grease) the wells of a set of muffin tins - see Notes. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together all Dry ingredients very well - at least 90 seconds. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together all of the wet ingredients (see Notes). You want this to be really smooth and uniform, so you can use a hand-mixer, an immersion blender, or use a stand-mixer or pitcher-style blender.
Fold wet ingredients into dry. Don’t overmix, but make sure that everything is thoroughly incorporated. The batter will be thick but soft and foamy.
Portion batter immediately: fill cups 2/3 full (a bit more is fine).
Bake on the lower rack for 10 minutes, then rotate pan and move to the top rack for an additional 8-10 minutes. Muffins are done when the tops are crackly and turning golden, and the centers no longer jiggle when the pan is agitated. A tester should come out crumby but with no wet batter. For real precision, use a probe thermometer: the muffins are done when the center hits 185F or so.
Remove from the oven and place the tin on a cooling rack; muffins can cool in the pan. Serve warm. Leftovers will keep in an air-tight container for 4-5 at room temp.
Notes
No rye flour? No sweat: you can use whole wheat, bread flour, or regular all-purpose. I don’t recommend cake flour or GF flour blends here.
Corn flour is just what it sounds like: corn kernels milled to the fine texture of flour. It’s not hard to find at either big-box or ethnic groceries, or online, but if you don’t want to go to the trouble, no big deal: just omit it and increase both the flour and the cornmeal by 1/4 cup each.
If you don’t like sweet potatoes, or simply want to make this with something else, you can use the same amount by weight of any other fruit/veggie puree: canned pumpkin, cooked and mashed butternut squash or carrots, even mashed banana (you’ll be surprised at how not-banana-ey the cornbread is). Just be mindful of texture and water content: you want it to mimic the consistency of mashed, roasted sweet potato. You can use applesauce, for example, but that is significantly more watery than the potato, so you’d want to simmer it on the stove to reduce it by 1/3 or so first. Mashed, roasted parsnips, on the other hand, would also work here, but they’re quite dry: you’d need to add a few tablespoons of water.
No yogurt? You can swap in sour cream, or (gasp) a 1:1 blend of buttermilk and mayo.
No heavy cream? You can swap in buttermilk, whole milk, or a 1:1 ratio of more yogurt and water.
The honey here is really for flavor and for increasing the crispness of the crust, not for sweetness; if you hate it, you can omit.
While we’re talking about flavor: feel free to add 1/4 cup of freeze-dried corn powder to the dry ingredients, a seeded and minced fresh jalapeño or two, and/or a splash of almond or vanilla extracts.
I’m not a corn-kernels-in-cornbread kind of person, but if you are, this recipe will support up to 1/2 cup of them without getting weighed down.
When blending the wet ingredients, no need to start with cold potato or browned butter; if they’re still warm, that’s ok. Just blend the warm ingredients with the cold dairy first, before adding the eggs, to avoid any chance that they might scramble.
A note on the muffin tin: you must use a metal, unlined muffin pan for these. Silicone muffin cups - and silicone baking surfaces, in general - will produce blonde, under-colored and steamy, soggy muffins without a trace of the crust that we’ve worked so hard to maximize here. Even using a paper liner will diminish the quality.
Again, this makes 9 bakery-sized muffins. If you don’t have a pair of large 6-well muffin pans, you can use a pair of regular 12-well - this will make about 18 of those, and you should reduce the bake time on the bottom rack by 3 minutes and on the top rack by 2 minutes. If you don’t want to make muffins at all, that’s fine, too: use a pre-heated cast-iron method if you prefer, or a cake pan or baking dish, reduce the baking temperature to 375F, and bake on a center rack - depending upon the size and shape of your baking vessel, it should take 30-45 minutes.
If you REALLY want to max out the crispy crust: make mini muffins. Keep the oven temp but place the rack in the middle, and grease one or two mini muffin tins; this will make 36+ muffins. Fill the tiny cups 3/4 full and watch them closely - they’ll bake and brown fast, in 7-9 minutes. They’ll be super crispy and delicious, like the very best hush puppies - no deep-frying required.
*And lastly, the asterisk: cook time doesn’t include the time to brown the butter (5-7 minutes) or to cook the sweet potato (varies). Do like I do: roast or Instant Pot some whole sweet potatoes, peel and mash them, and then freeze in 275g portions. BOOM, now you can make sweet potato cornbread, pancakes, muffins, waffles, pasta sauces, or just have yourself a li’l bowl of mashed sweety pots any time you want.