I was planning to make cornbread to go with black beans, but we were out of cornmeal, so I subbed white masa. Wow. Highly worthwhile. It was skillet cornbread that tasted like freshly made corn tortillas —slightly sweet, complex, and deeply “corny”, and I didn’t have to knead or roll anything (which is why the masa was in the cupboard —I don’t have time to roll or press tortillas). The batter took more liquid than regular cornmeal, but was otherwise put together the same way. I don’t think I’ll be using plain cornmeal for bread anymore.
- Yield: 8 good-size wedges
- Total: 30 min
- Active: 5 min
Ingredients (8)
My husband said the bread would make a great shortcake base, or you could split it, butter it, and melt some mild cheese on it for something like idiot arepas.
I don’t actually have a set recipe —I pretty much just use a 3:1 ratio of cornmeal to flour and the rest follows. Below is an approximation.
- 1.5 c masa harina
- 1/2 c flour,
- two eggs
- two t of baking powder
- 1 t. salt
- 1 scant T sugar (brown, turbinado, white, honey, whatever)
- 1.5 (approx) c of milk
- 1/2 stick of butter, softened
Instructions
- Mix dry ingredients.
- Rub half of butter (2 T) into dry ingr., Put the other half in a cast iron skillet in a 425 oven.
- Add eggs and enough milk to dry ingr to make a batter (takes more than regular cornmeal bread), around 1.5 c.
- When butter in skillet is melted, spread out batter and bake until brown around edges and light brown areas on top (20 min?). Cool out of the pan if you want to keep the bottom crust crisp.
