Sage Cornbread and a Plan for Thanksgiving Domination
Friday, November 18, 2011
Sage Cornbread
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
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…
Cornmeal, AP flour, baking powder, salt
…meets wet ingredients.
buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, honey, sage
A quick mix and mingle…
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.
done and done
Sage Cornbread
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 (http://bravetart.com/recipes/SageCornbread); I've added in volume measurements in case you don't have a kitchen scale.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes
Yield: 8 servings
Ingredients
Preparation
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 !
Print Recipe
Welcome to Lick My Spoon, a place for all things delicious. 
Yay for a sweet cornbread lover! Some people say it turns into ‘cake’ when it’s too sweet, but they’re being silly. A little sugar never hurt. Love the touches of sage at the edges.
I agree
Silly nay-sayers. What do you guys have up your sleeves for Thanksgiving this year?
That cornbread looks beautiful with the sage garnish. What a sweet idea for breads…
Thanks, Lydia! Â Hope you had a wonderful T-day
Just popped over from Food Gawker! Â This cornbread looks fantastic–love the addition of sage. Â Not only is a great flavor, but makes it look extra special too. Â Very beautiful. Â
Definitely agree that prepping before the big days ensures things go a lot more smoothly. Â Thanks for sharing this!Â
Thanks for stopping by, Laura! I adore sage. I love this idea of making a pretty design with the leaves, and will definitely be playing around with this presentation idea for other breads. Granted I probably didn’t have to do it for this batch since it’s just getting crumbled up for my stuffing
[...] asked. Yes.Not only is this stuffing brilliantly shaped, it is full of sausage, sage, pecans, and cornbread. It is also, conveniently, a great make-ahead dish. Make the stuffing at your leisure, freeze it, [...]
Sweet. I was inspired to bake something good. I really like it! Thank you for sharing this!
Why thank you, Shirley! Â Hope you enjoyed it!
Wow, this so beautiful. It looks like you baked a show-stopper!
Thanks, Rebecca! I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of decorating with herbs like that before — that BraveTart is brilliant
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