Fermented cornbread, a flavorful twist on original cornbread, made by fermenting cornmeal prior to baking, resulting in a deep, rich flavor!
I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t love a good batch of cornbread. Cornbread is an essential part of any dinner – next to a bowl of soup, with chili, topped with butter, honey or filled with hot peppers.
Cornbread can also be a breakfast food, too.
Here is a traditional recipe for fermented cornbread that you’ll want to try, along with some ideas for add-ins and enhancements.
Fermented Cornbread
Cornmeal ferments incredibly well. By fermenting cornmeal, you’ll make it easier to digest and give it a sourdough-like flavor. When made without traditional flours, it’s naturally gluten-free.
To ferment cornmeal, simply combine 1 3/4 C. of coarse cornmeal with 2 1/4 C. milk kefir, or even buttermilk. Cover loosely with a cheesecloth and allow the mixture to sit for 8-10 hours.
Over that time, the cornmeal will have air pockets from the fermentation.
Once the cornmeal is fermented, dump the jar into a large bowl and add your additional ingredients. Cornbread can tend to get rather dry — by adding additional items, you can enhance the flavor and prevent the cornbread from getting too dry.
You can add any of the below items to your cornbread:
- 1/2 C. grated cheese
- 3 Tbsp of diced jalapeños
- 2 Tbsp sun dried tomatoes
- fried and crumbled bacon along with the fat
- 1/3 C. butter
- 2 Tbsp Hatch chiles, chopped fine
In the end, cornbread is a wonderful solution – as a dinner side, breakfast option, or even a lunchtime snack. Mix and match your own additional ingredients to make the cornbread work for you.
Looking for additional cornbread recipes? Try this sourdough cornbread!
Fermented Cornbread Recipe
Ingredients
- 1.75 C cornmeal coarse
- 2.25 C milk kefir see other options below
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 ea egg
- 1/3 C butter melted
- 3 tsp baking powder
Instructions
- Mix the cornmeal and milk kefir (see other options for other ideas) in a large glass jar until combined. Lightly cover with a cheesecloth or piece of scrap fabric, or coffee filter and allow to sit for 8-10 hours.
- After 8-10 hours, the cornmeal should be visibly fermented (air pockets). Dump the jar contents into a large bowl and stir in the remaining ingredients.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a pie dish or oven-safe baking dish with a little butter. Pour the batter in the baking dish.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cornbread starts to brown on the edges.
Notes
- Feel free to sub the kefir with buttermilk.
- I bake my cornbread in a 9" glass pie dish.. but you could also use a square baking dish or even a muffin tin. If using a muffin tin, you might want to reduce the baking time by 5-10 minutes.
If you loved this cornbread recipe, I would be so appreciative if you it a review.
Make sure you snap a pic of your cornbread & tag me on Instagram . Use the tag #RebootedMom or in your IG post at @RebootedMom.
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I left one cup of corn meal, two cups of water, two tablespoons of plain full-fat yoghurt, and a dash of bread yeast to ferment for about 24 hours. When done it tasted rather strong. To this, I added two cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 cup of grated chedder cheese, three tablespoons of sugar, three teaspoons of baking powder, a tsp of salt, some minced fresh ginger, 1/2 tsp of nutmeg, and about 1-1/2 cups of reconstituted milk (we only use dried milk now). Baked this at 375 degrees (F) for almost 60 minutes. The result in a very tasty, rather moist, and high cornbread. The bitter taste of the raw fermented cornmeal is gone. The ginger flavor survived, and my wife just gave me an A+.
Sounds like your wife loves your cooking! Glad it worked well for you David!