I have fond childhood memories of big, fluffy cornbread muffins with honey butter served as an appetizer or with hot soup. Maybe that’s why I still love it so much.
This wheat-free cornbread recipe is nearly the same as a recipe with wheat, but the slight differences are very important. The gluten in wheat acts very quickly, making batters elastic as soon as moisture is added. This allows bubbes from the leavening to form and stay trapped in the batter rather than escaping. These trapped bubbles are the reason baked goods rise. Without the gluten, flour takes a much longer time to process moisture and develop the elasticity it needs to rise properly. This means that you must let the batter rest for 8-10 minutes. Otherwise, it doesn’t have the elasticity it needs to keep the bubbles trapped and allow the bread to rise. (I tried to skip this step once and made some pretty flat cornbread.)
Also, since baking powder begins to work as soon as you add liquid, you must pour the batter immediately, and let the batter rise in the baking pan, not in the bowl. If you were to leave it in the bowl, the batter becomes too thick to pour well, and you would pop many of the carbon dioxide bubbles that form in the batter. This would also lead to flat cornbread.
That said, if you follow these steps, you should end up with fluffy, delicious cornbread to compliment your soup or just to butter and drizzle with honey. Enjoy!
Allergy Notes:
- Do make sure to use pure canola oil. Many “vegetable” oils contain oils that cross-react with latex, like soy and sunflower.
| Prep Time | 10 minutes |
| Cook Time | 25 minutes |
| Passive Time | 10 minutes |
| Servings |
pieces
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- 1 cup corn meal
- 1 cup wheat-free flour mixture
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp double-acting baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1/3 cup pure canola oil
- 1 egg
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
Wet Ingredients
|
|
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F and grease an 8 x 8 inch square baking pan. (A 6 1/2 by 12 inch pan works too.)
- Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
- Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and add the milk, oil, and egg. Stir all ingredients together until well-combined.
- Pour the batter into the baking pan and let stand for 8-10 minutes before placing in the oven.
- Bake for 30-40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cornbread comes out clean.
My recipes avoid all ingredients listed on the American Latex Allergy Association website as known for cross-reacting with latex as well as a few other ingredients that I have discovered elsewhere. However, latex-fruit syndrome is still an emerging issue and poorly understood. There may be other foods that cross-react, and people with latex-fruit syndrome often have other food allergies independent of their latex allergy. Each individual is different, so be sure to discuss with your allergist the safest way for you to try out ingredients that are new to you before you cook with them.