Fresh baked vegan cornbread

cornbread!, originally uploaded by Amity Beane.

 

Did you know that if you mill corn, the cornmeal is sweet for about 6 hours? After that it goes rancid, which means that if you go to the store and buy ‘cornmeal’ you have to dump in quite a bit of sugar in order to make it taste like cornbread. I’m told this is a bit of a faux pas in southern culture.

The bread itself was 1 1/2 cups popcorn kernels, 1 1/2 cups spelt flour and a dash of salt milled into a flour, with some baking powder and soda. I then mixed veggie broth, honey (okay, not so vegan, the recipe calls for barley malt, but I got it direct from the organic apiary- we pick our battles), and apple cider vinegar. The topping (which was actually at the bottom until the bread was freed from the skillet, is fresh corn cut off the cob, fresh red pepper, and a whit onion, all stir fried, put in the bottom of a small skillet and topped with dough. Baked at 375° for 25 minutes. I was very happy with the results.You can serve this as is or with any nutritional yeast-based gravy, it is quite good that way!For a spicy variation, include white pepper and cayenne powder in the dough!