Simple Cornbread

Today's Southwestern Cornbread Stuffing uses a custom cornbread with Southwestern flavors. For something more traditional, I also wanted to share this recipe, which I first made last year as “Corny Corn Bread."

It takes Mark Bittman's simple corn bread recipe and amps up the corn flavor with a little ground freeze-dried corn. It's perfect corn bread for stuffing or by itself a Thanksgiving side.

I discovered freeze-dried corn when making Momofuku Milk Bar's recipe for Corn Cookies. It's available online from Amazon. You may also be able to find it in stores like Whole Foods.

Corny Cornbread
Adapted from Cornbread by Mark Bittman

1/2 cup ground freeze-dried corn
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup corn meal (finely ground)
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. sugar
1 large egg
1 1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tbsp. unsalted butter

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.

2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Separately, combine egg and buttermilk, add to dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

3. When oven is hot, put an 8 x 8 inch baking dish in the oven. Remove after a couple minutes when when the baking dish hot and add the butter, put back in the oven and let it melt (be careful not to let it burn, as butter will scorch at this temperature).

4. Remove hot pan with melted butter from oven and pour batter into pan. Bake for about 30 minutes until top is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool a bit, but serve warm.