Dutch Oven Cornbread #MellowBakers

Cornbread is one of the breads that was randomly chosen for the Mellow Bakers’ group this month. I love cornbread, but this is not like any cornbread I’ve ever made or tasted.  I liked it though.

Here’s a bit of corn bread history…

“Corn bread was not invented. It was a product of cultural exchange and practical necessity. Corn [aka maize] is a new world food. Native Americans were cooking with ground corn long before the European explorers set foot on New World soil. The food we know today as “corn bread” has a northern European (English, Dutch, etc.) culinary heritage. Why? Because the new settlers often had to “make do” with local ingredients [corn meal] when their traditional ingredients [finely ground wheat] were in short supply. When colonial American recipes carried the name “Indian” in their title (Indian bread, Indian pudding) it was because one of the ingredients was cornmeal.” 

Food Timeline http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq.html#cornbread

 

Dutch Oven Cornbread

Adapted from: Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

Makes: 1 large loaf

Instead of following the baking method outlined in the book, I decided to bake this bread in a pot.  I usually make cornbread in my cast iron skillet and since this recipe makes two loaves, I thought the dough would fit well in my Dutch oven.  It did!

Here is my adapted method:

Day 1 (Evening): Mix the Poolish

This cornbread utilizes an overnight poolish. 

• 8 oz (1 3/4 cups) bread flour
• 8 oz (1 cup) water
• 1/8 tsp instant dry yeast

Mix all of the ingredients together until smooth. Let the poolish rest on the counter for 12 to 16 hours at about 70 degrees F.  I let it sit on the counter for the full 16 hours.  It was a little hotter in my house than 70 degrees.

 

Day 2: Mix the Final Dough

• 1 lb. (3 5/8 cups) bread flour
• 8 oz (1/4 cup) fine ground cornmeal
• 12.2 oz. (1 1/2 cups) water
• .6 oz. (1 T) salt
• .17 oz. (1 1/2 tsp.) instant dry yeast
• 1.6 oz. (3 T.) extra virgin olive oil
• Poolish, all of the above

Add the cornmeal to a mixing bowl, pour the water over it and allow it to soak for 15 minutes to begin softening the cornmeal.  This is supposed to help with the mixing and handling of the dough.

Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl, including the poolish.  I added the dry ingredients first.  Then I incorporated the poolish into the dough with my Danish dough whisk. The dough whisk wasn’t getting the job done so I switched to my stand mixer and let it do the work.

Mix until there is moderate gluten development. I had to add more flour but finally got what I thought was medium gluten development.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it ferment for and hour and a half.

 

Bulk Fermentation/Folding the Dough

About 45 minutes into the bulk fermentation, fold the dough.  I did this with a spatula.

Here is what the dough looked like after the 1 1/2 hour fermentation.

Shaping the Dough

As I mentioned earlier, rather than proofing these loaves in a banneton basket and baking them on a baking stone, I decided to bake one big loaf in my Dutch oven.  Instead of placing the dough in a proofing basket, I placed it in another large bowl that had been greased with oil. I let the dough proof in the bowl for an hour.

Baking the Bread

While the dough was proofing, I sprinkled the Dutch oven with cornmeal.  Then I placed it in the 450 degrees oven to preheat.  After the dough had proofed, I carefully inverted the dough into the pot and smoothed out the top.  The pan gets really hot so be careful when using this method.

I baked the cornbread with the lid on for about 25 minutes or so.  Then I took the lid off and let the bread continuing baking until it was golden brown.

I let the dough cool in the pan for a little while then removed it to a wire rack.When I couldn’t wait any longer, I sliced it and ate a piece.  It was really good!  I mean really good!  Crispy on the outside and yummy on the inside.  It tasted great warm with butter.

 

I like the flavor and texture of this version baked in the Dutch oven but I think I’ll try it as a freeform loaf next time. I’ll definitely be making this one again.

 

The Mellow Bakers group was hosted by Paul at Yumarama.

 

Happy Baking!
Cathy