Kelis' Ginger Cornbread

 

Hey guys!

I wanted to try a cornbread recipe as I’ve never had it before, it was actually pretty similar to an orange cornmeal cake I’ve had before but I guess it’s a staple, so I looked into Kelis cookbook and worked out how to do my own vegan spin on it, and did a big like sweet version and some savory mini’s for a chili!

Ingredients 

  • 1/2 cup coconut oil 

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

  • 1 cup yellow cornmeal (or polenta)

  • 1/4 cup brown sugar

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder 

  • 1 teaspoon golden syrup

  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

  • 1 cup coconut milk

  • 2 tablespoons chia seeds

  • 5 teaspoons candied ginger

  • 2 tablespoons dried ginger

So when I was googling how to create this dish, everyone was saying you basically use butter in a skillet and you pop your skillet straight into the oven, the problem with that is I have an emersion hob in this house and you can’t use those in the oven, so I had to prep out a glass dish and do most of the work in a bowl. It was more cake-like than I think the traditional version is but it did come out fantastic so I can still recommend haha!

First, let’s start by preparing the dry ingredients, I used the polenta and the flour in a bowl with salt and the baking powder.

In two different jugs, I mixed up some chia seeds, the coconut milk and let to coagulate and form an egg-like replacement for about 30 minutes. The chia seeds kind of melt into the corn texture so I didn’t really notice them at all after cooking and they offer a great alternative to eggs. I also mixed up some glaze which I wanted to coat the cornbread with at the very end, this is how I made the orange variation I tried before and I basically used a mixture of a tbsp golden syrup and one of coconut oil mixed up. I set this aside as I wanted to paint it on later.

Once the egg replacer is gummy, you can mix it with the dry ingredients and keep stirring. I wasn’t majorly happy with how wet the product felt but I added some more of the cornmeal until it was a texture similar to that of porridge.

So in finally go as much of the candied ginger as you like, don’t over mix this as you want it to be evenly distributed and not sit on the bottom. I lined my tin with some olive oil and then parchment cut into a circle to help the cake come out of the case during cooking and preheated the oven to about 190c. I put more of the coconut oil in the casing and left it in the oven for about 15 minutes so when I put the cornbread mix in, it would have a crispy surface to the bottom as if I had started it off in the skillet. So when ready, I popped her in for about 20 minutes. You can test it with a knife, if it comes out clean you’re done. When the cake was resting, I took it out and added some of the glazes I had leftover.

I had some of the ingredients leftover so in some muffin trays I mixed up a pea, jalapeno and vegan cheddar, and just a plane savory variety and they cooked at about 5 minutes less than the main.

So the cornbread overall was a smash hit, the cake was lighter than most of the cakes I’ve tried that are completely vegan and it was so yummy. The mini ones went amazing with a chili I cooked out for my mum’s partners birthday so it was a really awesome test. I can’t wait to try more!

Let me know what you love at home!

 
Joseph Harwooddessert