Coconut lime cornbread and updated regular cornbread

0:00 I'm going to be honest and say I've

0:01 never had better sweet cornbread than my own.

0:05 I'm going to show you some slight updates

0:07 that I've made to the recipe through the years.

0:09 And then I'm going to show you a full-on dessert version with coconut and lime.

0:13 It won my neighborhood baking competition.

0:16 I'm just saying.

0:17 If sweet cornbread is not your thing, that's fine.

0:20 But it's one of the most requested items from my kitchen.

0:23 I make it for breakfast on special occasions.

0:26 This batter is super easy.

0:27 It's just an egg in a bowl.

0:29 1/3 of a cup, 80 mls of a neutral tasting oil.

0:33 If you don't want to use the highly refined oils,

0:35 I think avocado oil tastes really nice in this.

0:38 One cup, 200 g of granulated sugar on top.

0:41 Yes, this is more cake than bread, and I'm fine with that.

0:44 Better than fine, actually.

0:46 Now is a good time to do a preliminary whisk.

0:48 It's easy to break up the egg and mix it with the oil

0:51 when you have all this granular material in there for abrasion.

0:55 Time for a cup, 237 mls of liquid.

0:58 And I used to use plain milk, but lately I've been using buttermilk.

1:02 Or actually, this is kafir, which is the Indian equivalent,

1:05 generally fermented with a slightly different community of microorganisms.

1:09 But for baking, it's the same stuff.

1:11 It's thick, mildly tangy milk.

1:13 It makes baked goods more moist and flavorful.

1:16 For salt, I'm doing half a teaspoon of kosher,

1:18 which is a little less than I normally use, and I'll tell you why in just a sec.

1:22 Time for the dry stuff.

1:24 One cup of cornmeal.

1:25 And I recommend using a reasonably fine grind,

1:28 which should weigh like 150 g for a cup.

1:31 The coarser cornmeal tends to hurt your teeth in cornbread.

1:34 It doesn't hydrate enough to soften all the way.

1:37 A cup 120 g of allpurpose flour.

1:40 You can make cornbread with just cornmeal,

1:42 but it won't have any gluten, so it won't be fluffy at all.

1:46 It won't be able to retain much gas as it bakes.

1:49 On top of the dry so that it doesn't react

1:51 with the water prematurely goes one teaspoon of baking powder.

1:55 And then to neutralize some of the acid in the buttermilk,

1:58 I'll use a/4 teaspoon of baking soda.

2:01 When the pH of the batter gets too low,

2:03 it tends to bake up all gummy and it has trouble browning.

2:06 The baking soda just raises the pH a bit.

2:09 And I have for sure found that I get a lighter texture if I leave

2:13 this for 15 minutes before I bake it

2:16 to let all the particles hydrate and to get autolyis.

2:19 That's the water developing the gluten for me.

2:22 And the way that I force myself to let the batter

2:24 rest is to wait until it's done before heating up my oven.

2:28 And I will put my 10-in cast iron pan in there to heat up with the oven.

2:32 That is key.

2:33 I used to bake this at 400F, but since getting a good convection oven,

2:38 I've been adjusting my temperatures down a little to compensate

2:41 for the improved heat transfer that the fan gives you.

2:44 And once the oven is up to temperature,

2:45 I will carefully remove the hot pan and melt a lot of butter in there.

2:49 If you're not using a Teflon pan, you'll want some extra grease to make sure

2:53 this releases all the way up the sides.

2:56 Plus, the butter makes the brown crust taste amazing.

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4:01 Thank you, Wild Grain.

4:02 Anyway, butter in the hot cast iron.

4:04 I'm using salted butter because that's what I have,

4:07 which is why I adjusted the salt in my batter down a little.

4:10 With this much butter, the salt adds up and you really taste it.

4:14 If there's a lot of excess butter, you can blot some up.

4:17 In goes the batter to the hot pan.

4:19 Preheating the pan helps the crust brown.

4:21 It helps it to not stick as bad, and it gets you a fluffier bread

4:25 by helping internal steam build up before everything solidifies.

4:29 In my oven, it takes about 20 minutes.

4:32 When it's done, it starts to crack on top

4:34 and it feels bouncy in the middle rather than squishy.

4:37 This needs a couple more minutes.

4:39 You can pierce it with something to see if it

4:41 comes out clean or you can take its temperature or both.

4:45 I would pull this at 200FH 180C because it's going to bake

4:48 a little bit more in the hot pan as it cools.

4:51 You have to let it cool and solidify

4:53 in there for 5 10 minutes before turning it out.

4:56 Give it an aggressive shake to get it released from the bottom.

5:00 Then you can put a plate or a board on top.

5:03 Carefully flip it upside down.

5:05 Yay, we did it.

5:06 But it's upside down.

5:08 So, a plate or a cooling rack on top of that and then flip again.

5:12 I like to let the bottom steam out on the rack so that it doesn't get all soggy.

5:16 Then you can slice it into wedges or whatever you want.

5:19 This same recipe works in a smaller pan, by the way.

5:22 It just takes a little longer to bake,

5:23 but it would come out taller, which can be nice.

5:26 So, yeah, this is sweet,

5:27 but in a way that evokes sweet corn rather than dessert.

5:31 It's a great side for soup or chili or some such.

5:35 However, you can make a straightup dessert cornbread.

5:38 And here is my prize-winning recipe for that.

5:41 One egg as before.

5:43 Third of a cup of oil, a cup of sugar.

5:45 Everything is the same so far.

5:47 Same cup of buttermilk or kefir.

5:50 This really helps the inside stay moist cuz cornbread tends to dry out.

5:54 What we'll do different is we're only going to use

5:56 3/4 of a cup of cornmeal, like 110 g.

5:59 That's to leave room and moisture for the coconut that's coming later.

6:04 A full cup of flour.

6:05 As before, this is sweetened shredded coconut.

6:08 Unsweetened would probably be fine.

6:10 A/2 cup of this, 40 or 50 g.

6:13 It's not very dense when shredded.

6:15 Same/ teaspoon of salt for me because I like noticeable salt in my desserts,

6:20 but you can leave some of it out if you want.

6:22 Same teaspoon of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda.

6:26 And this is very optional, but I'm doing a little splash of coconut flavoring.

6:30 The shredded coconut mostly contributes texture.

6:33 If you want it to really taste like coconut,

6:35 you need the concentrated essential oils or whatever is in that bottle.

6:39 Do not over mix.

6:41 Just get it smooth and let it sit while heating the pan in the oven.

6:45 Same temp.

6:46 Butter that baby.

6:47 You don't have to use as much if you use a non-stick pan.

6:50 But honestly, the butter makes a super tasty crust.

6:53 And I particularly like the salted butter for the dessert version.

6:57 It balances the sweet icing.

6:59 Don't be surprised if this batter is a little

7:01 looser cuz coconut is less absorbent than cornmeal is.

7:05 Bake as before, about 20 minutes or just

7:07 until the top feels springy, not squishy.

7:10 Let solidify a few minutes and then shake hard to release.

7:13 Turn out to the board.

7:15 Turn out again to the rack.

7:16 I definitely use the rack this time because it's good for icing.

7:20 This is a lime icing.

7:22 Most of the flavor is going to come from the zest.

7:24 Plenty of zest in there.

7:26 Open up the lime and squeeze it all in if you want,

7:28 but I think that the icing will come out way too sour.

7:31 I just want like a teaspoon of juice.

7:34 1 cup, 120 g, of powdered sugar.

7:36 And the rest of my liquid I'll get from milk or water rather than lime juice.

7:41 However much you need to get a glazed texture.

7:43 No, the lime will not curdle the milk.

7:46 There's so much sugar to get between

7:48 the milk proteins and keep them from clumping.

7:50 I would go for a thinish glaze like this.

7:53 A thicker one will give you more of a frosting

7:56 vibe and make the whole thing too sweet.

7:58 Let the cornbread cool a bit before spilling the glaze over it.

8:01 Otherwise, the heat will cause it to thin out and then all run off.

8:05 You can tilt it in different directions to make

8:08 sure that it spreads over the whole cake.

8:09 And let's be honest, this is a cake.

8:12 Excess glaze will just drip through the cooling rack.

8:14 And I let it go on the counter because it's so

8:17 easy to wipe up and I need to wipe my counter anyway.

8:20 Let that glaze solidify before you slice

8:22 or it'll just smear everywhere when you cut.

8:25 There you go.

8:25 Coconut lime sweet cornbread.

8:28 Winner in the originality category at the neighborhood Labor Day picnic.

8:32 Thank you very much.

8:34 It was actually Lauren's idea, so we'll let her eat it.

8:38 It's like do a little dance cut.

8:40 [laughter]