I admit, I wanted to make another type of cornbread – the flat type that my mother makes on the frying pan, on the stove. I had a long phone conversation with her just for that but I gave up on her when she could only give me eyeball estimates for the measurements. Then I tried my aunt, she was better with measurements but she had a vital information (something my mother also emphasised): you can’t do that flat cornbread with regular corn flour, it has to be roasted flour. Well well, they were right, that flat cornbread turned out horrible.

 

So with loads of corn flour in my kitchen and a broken will to make corn bread, I googled recipes and found this rather cake-like bread in Hummingbird High blog. The result was finding myself in heaven.

 

 

 

Yes, the consistency of the bread feels more like a cake, a salty one. But it tastes so good when dipped in olive oil, which is my absolute favourite combination when it comes to cornbread. By the way, the flat cornbread I wanted to make tastes fan-tas-tic with fish, particularly European anchovy, which is found in abundance in Black Sea (hence that bread originating from Black Sea region in Turkey).

 

 

Flat or pouffy or round or square, corn bread tastes great no matter what. This recipe is not gluten free since corn flour is mixed with wheat flour however, soon I will also make one totally gluten free corn bread and share the recipe. In the meantime, enjoy this cake-y bread with lots and lots of olive oil and extra olives!

 

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Ingredients:

 

Difficulty: ★★☆ (Medium)

3.5 cups / 8.4 dl. corn flour
1.75 cups / 4.2 dl. white flour
1.5 tbsp / 22.5 ml. baking powder
2.5 tsp / 12.5 ml. salt
1.4 cups / 3.3 dl. granulated white sugar
2.25 cups / 5.4 dl. whole milk
5 eggs, in room temperature
1.25 cups / 285 gr. butter, melted

 

(To my fellow expats in Finland: if you have problems with the Finnish word for any of these ingredients, check my mini Finnish-English dictionary: https://mydearkitcheninhelsinki.com/2015/06/05/a-mini-finnish-english-dictionary-for-your-food-related-vocabulary/)

 

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1. Preheat your oven to 210C. Grease your mould and cover with baking sheet, put aside.

 

 

2. In a mixing bowl, put all the dry ingredients except sugar and just mix a bit.

 

 

3. Put sugar, milk and eggs in a bowl and whisk until they are fully incorporated.

 

 

 

 

4. Add melted butter into the egg mixture and whisk continuously (melted butter will be warm and if you don’t mix constantly, you might scramble the eggs) until fully incorporated.

 

 

 

5. Make a well in the middle of flour mixture and pour the wet ingredients mixture in it. Fold it until all dry ingredients get wet. It is going to be a thick batter, but I suggest you just do it by hand, you don’t use any mixer. If you use mixer, it might get to be a too hard bread in the end.

 

 

 

 

6. Pour the batter in the mould and bake for about 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. When baked, take it out of the oven and let it cool for about 5 minutes in the mould. Then take it out of the mould and let it cool down to room temperature before serving. Serve together with olive oil to dip it in (optional).