I decided this weekend would be a good time to make another vegetable based baked good. At first, I had settled with sweet potato bread- however, this entailed the use of my bread machine. I have a theory that the arctic climate of my house is not conducive of happy yeast ( meaning my product would likely resemble a dense brick), so I decided to go with a quick bread that requires none of that rising nonsense. Though I'm pretty sure sweet potato quick bread does exist, I decided I may want to actually eat the sweet potatoes in non-bread form at some point this week, so I decided on corn bread. Although there is much debate about whether corn is actually a vegetable, for the purposes of this blog (so I can continue this whole vegetable based baked products) CORN IS A VEGETABLE.
Every piece of cornbread/corn muffin I have ever had comes in one of two categories:
Type 1: The corn muffins at the Dining Commons is a quintessential example of this category of corn "bread"/"muffin". These corn muffins tread the thin line between muffins (sounds healthy, right?) and cupcakes (not so healthy..duh). Actually, I have always been a believer that there is actually not a thin line between muffins and cupcakes, but instead a big, fat, sketchy, undefined imaginary boundary that is easily up to the eater's discretion. For instance, take a moist blue berry muffin complete with a sugary, buttery streusel topping. Take note to the appropriate use of the word muffin. However, take this same product and put frosting on it; Buh-Bam!! it is now a cupcake. Therefore, streusel topping vs frosting is one characteristic that some (myself guilty) use to distinguish between the two words.
Time of day is another potential defining character; If it is morning, I would like to consider the product I am eating a muffin- because who eats cupcakes in the morning? But if I had that same product in the evening after dinner, I would like to consider it a cupcake- because who eats muffins for dessert? Thus, assuming that streusel topping and frosting are considered nutritionally equivalent, whether I call something a muffin or cupcake has nothing to do with its fat or sugar content, but instead, what type of sugary and fatty topping I have on it and/or what time of day I am eating it. One more potential distinguishing factor between muffins and cupcakes is the nature of the foods they accompany- which leads me back to the corn "muffins" at the DC. The corn products are placed in a nice little bowl not by the dessert section, but by the chili. This stealthy placement contributes to their perceived identity of muffins. Have you ever heard of anyone dipping cupcakes in chili? I sure haven't. People OBVIOUSLY dip corn muffins in chili. Alas, even though these products are rich, sugary and moist- just like many cakes I enjoy-they are considered type I corn MUFFINS.
Type 2: Dry, crumbly and bland corn bread/muffins. There is no cake/bread ambiguity with this type of corn BREAD. Usually this type of bread needs copious amounts of honey, butter or chili to make it moist enough to swallow. I'm not saying that this lack of cake-ness is necessarily a bad thing, because corn bread should be just that: corn bread.
So when I decided to make corn bread, I needed to decide on a "type" I was going to attempt. I decided with type II, just because I wanted an actual bread product that I didn't feel guilty about consuming. I was happy to know I had all the ingredients on hand except cornmeal. There is a grocery store near me that has an awesome bulk section so if there is some obscure product you need, you can just get a small amount of it. I'm not saying cornmeal is a super "obscure" ingredient, but I didn't feel like buying a whole box of it, so I decided to go to this store to buy my cornmeal. When I was being rung up, I almost had a heart attack when the cashier told me the cost of my approximately one cup of cornmeal cost $8.25- had I accidentally picked up hand-ground organic cornmeal? No... apparently my handwriting on little white twisty ties sucks and they thought I was purchasing grade-B maple syrup. Woops. I got that whole issue resolved quickly. Anyways, the healthy recipe I used:
1 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon salt
2 egg whites
1 cup skim milk
1/4 cup applesauce
Directions:
1.Mix dry ingredients.
2.Mix wet ingredients
3.Sift in dry into wet and mix until combined (I didn't have a sifter so I just used an egg beater!)
4.Bake for 400 degrees in a prepared 8x8 pan for 20 minutes
5. Serve with butter or honey and enjoy!
This bread has a surprisingly rich texture for something with applesauce and egg whites instead of oil and full eggs. A little more sugar and it would be approaching type I cornbread status!! A little bit of honey on top is all it needed. Anyways, I would say this was a fairly successful endeavor- maybe I should have bought more than 99 cents worth of cornmeal!
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