Friday, October 07, 2011

Maize Bread - Vegan Mofo Post 6


Maize is the term we use to refer to the locally available variety of corn in India. Ever since I tasted corn bread for the first time at Angelica Kitchen in downtown Manhattan, I knew I'd wanted to add the recipe to my baking repertoire. After returning to Bangalore, I searched in vain for corn meal here. Then one fine day I saw broken maize at the grocery store and even though it had more of the texture of corn grits as opposed to corn meal, I knew it would do the trick! :)

I adapted this recipe from the very first vegan recipe book in my collection, Very Vegetarian by Jannequin Bennett. A beautiful hard cover with recipes ranging from simple to gourmet and pictures ranging from super delicious to droolalicious! To this day, the book continues to give me guidance and inspiration.

Corn bread a very simple and quick bread with the right balance of moistness and crumbliness. Hubby and I enjoy it best with vegan chilli (as you can see in the picture). The crumbs soak up all the flavors from the chilli and combine to create a delicious burst of flavors and textures in the mouth.

Corn Bread and Chilli

1 C Broken Maize or Yellow Cornmeal
1 C Maize Flour or Corn Flour or All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 t Baking Powder
1/2 t Baking Soda
1/4 t Salt
1/4 C Maple Syrup or Sugar Syrup
1/3 C Soymylk or Almond Mylk or Cashew Mylk*
1 T Lemon Juice or Vinegar (I prefer Apple Cider Vinegar best)
3 T Warm Olive Oil or other Vegetable Oil
3/4 C Warm Water

Preheat oven to 190 C / 375 F.

Keep a 9 inch square baking pan ready.

Pour the warm water over the broken maize and keep aside.

Sift together the dry ingredients.

Beat together the wet ingredients.

Mix everything together.

Pour into the baking pan and quickly and lightly spread to make a more or less even layer.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Serve warm.

Enjoy! :)


*Note: I tried using water instead of Vegan Mylk and it really messed up the texture. I think a certain amount of protein/fat is required in the liquid for the crumbs to come out perfect.

9 comments:

  1. Sounds really yummy! I will add this to my collection :)

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  2. Not only does that look absolutely scrumptious, but I love that you call it maize instead of corn :)

    I'll have to give Angelica Kitchen a try ASAP, unless of course you'd like to mail me some of that yummy bread (LOL!).

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  3. I had to try this as soon as I saw your post. This was my first attempt at baking a bread. When I saw teh batter, it looked very watery and I must admit some doubts crossed m mind then. But OMG, it looked and tasted absolutely amazing when done! This is a wonderful recipe! One question though, can I change the maple syrup proportion and make this more savoury you think?

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  4. Thanks Mo, Nath, jd, Jojo and Preethi. :)

    jd, in the two weeks it'll take to reach you, I'm thinking it'll have turned into green maize bread by the time you open the package. LOL

    Preethi, it's awesome that you made it immediately! :) Sure you can make it savory. There's something called TexMex corn bread where they add chopped peppers and all that. I've attempted this bread with chillies etc... long ago. It's pretty nice. But I prefer this sweeter one so I stick to it. You could reduce the maple syrup a bit in the savory version but not by too much. Somehow that sweetness seems to suit the corn taste. Let me know how the experiment turns out. :)

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  5. This cornbread sounds delicious! I am in the process of making vegan chili and was looking for a good cornbread recipe to make to go with it and just happened to stumble across your blog! How perfect! I am going to make this, thanks for sharing :)!

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    1. This recipe came together in about 5 minutes, it's baking in the oven now, found it on Pinterest and am making it to go with some chili I have cooking in the crockpot. I appreciate vegan recipes even though we eat meat because they are easy to adapt to our little girl who has severe food allergies. Thanks for sharing!

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    2. Glad you found the recipe useful. Hope it turned out delicious. :)

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