Recipe: Gluten Free Vegan Cornbread

A slab of gluten free vegan cornbread for a southern birthday chilli

I have scoured the shelves in every Whole foods store, independent health food store and farmers’ market in Texas and I have yet to find Vegan cornbread to complete my Southern experience! For a special someone’s birthday, I decided to take matters into my own hands. For some reason, despite never having made Cornbread before, I decided to really up the challenge and make it Gluten Free Vegan too.

Having gone deeper than the name and prepped the ingredients, I can say for anybody needing a Southern education as myself, that Cornbread is not actually bread, it’s as sweet as any dessert! Serving with a delicious Tortilla & black bean soup leveled out the sweetness, but this cornbread should actually be called Corncake! Southern food, not normally regarded for its health benefits, packs a fatty calorific punch to cornbread.

Thanks to the minimalist baker for her recipe, I followed it to the T.  It worked so well at binding together and rising; but it was way too sweet for my English taste, where we wash a sweet scone is down with bitter tea.

I was going to save this post until I’d had opportunity to experiment with the recipe, reducing the salt and switching to an oil based butter substitute rather than a margarine base like Earth Balance, but the birthday boy said on the second day, after it had rested over night, that it tasted so good, I felt I should share it and see if any baking blog friends would like to take up the Vegan Gluten Free Cornbread challenge. Please Southern or American friends who have some experience of what cornbread tastes like, please give it a try and adjust to my European palate!

Minimalist Baker’s Cornbread for Two recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 small flax egg (1/2 Tbsp flax seed meal + 1 1/2 Tbsp water)
• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp plain unsweetened almond milk + 1 tsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 Tbsp vegan butter, melted
• 1/4 cup cane or granulated sugar (sub other sugars with varied results)
• 1 Tbsp unsweetened applesauce (or sub 1 more Tbsp melted butter)
• pinch sea salt
• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp fine yellow cornmeal
• 1/4 cup + 3 Tbsp unbleached all purpose flour (I haven’t tried using GF flours yet, so test away!)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease two small ramekins or two muffin tins.
2. Prepare flax egg in a small bowl and let set for a few minutes to achieve an “eggy” texture. Measure out almond milk and add lemon juice and let curdle for a few minutes. Then add baking soda and stir once more. Set aside.
3. To a mixing bowl, add melted butter and sugar and whisk vigorously to combine. Then add applesauce, flax egg, and whisk once more. Next add almond buttermilk mixture and whisk vigorously again to combine.
4. Next add salt, cornmeal, flour and stir with a spoon until just incorporated. It will look thin and somewhat lumpy. That’s what you’re going for.
5. Divide batter between greased ramekins or muffin tins (it may take up to three muffin tins, but my ramekins were large enough to fit just 2).
6. Bake for 28-35 minutes, or until the edges are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into a center comes out clean.
7. Let rest in the cooking dish for a few minutes before serving. I highly recommend serving these with just a touch of non-dairy butter and maple syrup or honey if not vegan.
8. Will keep in an airtight container for up to a couple days. Store in the freezer to keep longer. These would go excellent with my 5 ingredient Sweet Potato Black Bean Chili.

Thank you for the inspiration Dana!