Sage Cornbread and a Plan for Thanksgiving Dominationfeatured

My plan for world domination Thanksgiving Day success centers around an age-old strategy for stress-free entertaining: make as much in advance as possible.

A plan for T Day domination

A plan for T Day domination

Purple Sharpie in hand, I wrote out my menu, broke down my 7-day gameplan, and put together my shopping list. It would all come down to timing, organization, and lots of butter.

In preparation of a killer recipe for stuffing (coming soon!), I made a batch of this Sage Cornbread recipe from Stella over at BraveTart. I’ve been blog-stalking Stella lately…if you haven’t checked her out yet, do it now. She’ll make you laugh. She’ll make you want to bake something good. She’ll inspire you to run out and buy a kitchen scale so you can be a big girl baker too.

With so many recipes and dishes on my mind, I appreciated how low-maintenance this cornbread was. It was a pain-free two-step of dry ingredients…

sage cornbread ingredients

Cornmeal, AP flour, baking powder, salt

…meets wet ingredients.

sage cornbread ingredients

buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, honey, sage

A quick mix and mingle…

Cornmeal batter

cornmeal batter

…and bake ‘til golden.

Being the Yankee I am, I tend to like my cornbread sweeter than the one this recipe makes. If I were making this to eat as is, I would probably add a bit of sugar to the mix…or just eat it slathered with honey butter. Mmmm…honey butter.

Now, the hardest part of this cornbread mission: not eating it all before stuffing-time tomorrow.

Sage Cornbread

done and done

Sage Cornbread

Yield: 8 servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

This herbaceous cornbread is the base of a Sausage Pecan Stuffing I'm making for Thanksgiving, but it is also delicious by itself (slathered in honey butter). Recipe by BraveTart; I've added in volume measurements in case you don't have a kitchen scale.

Ingredients

  • 5 ounces / 1 cup yellow cornmeal
  • 4 ½ ounces / 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 12 sage leaves, finely chopped
  • 2 ¼ ounces / 2 tablespoons honey
  • 8 ½ ounces / 1 cup buttermilk
  • 3 ounces / 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 egg
  • 2 egg yolks
  • additional sage leaves to garnish

Instructions

  1. Rub an 8" or 9" cast iron skillet with some safflower oil and set it into a cold oven. Preheat the oven to 400° and let the skillet preheat with the oven, for about an hour. This ensures a nice, crackling crust on the cornbread.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients and then add all the wet ingredients and whisk just until combined. You did it.
  3. Now, remove the hot skillet from the oven. Arrange the sage leaves along the bottom, veined side up (thus, pretty side down). Make a pattern if you like, or scatter them irregularly.
  4. If you've made a pattern, use a spoon to carefully ladle in the batter to avoid disturbing leaves. Or just pour the batter in all at once and let the leaves fall where they may.
  5. Bake in the oven for approximately 30 minutes. If you plan to use the cornbread for stuffing, bake an extra five minutes or so to ensure a drier texture.
  6. Upon removing the cornbread from the oven, gently run a dull knife around the edges to loosen the bread, then invert onto a cutting board or plate. Remove the skillet and voilà !
http://lickmyspoon.com/recipes/sage-cornbread-and-a-plan-for-thanksgiving-domination/

Add comment