The Cornbread Gospels (31 page)

A
BOUT
⅔
CUP, ENOUGH FOR
1
FULL BATCH OF
G
LAZED
M
APLE
C
ORNMEAL
R
OLLS

3 tablespoons butter

1¼ teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1 egg

Combine ¼ cup water with the butter, salt, sugar, and maple syrup in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then quickly remove from the heat and beat in the egg. Use to glaze rolls.

Substitute milk for the buttermilk and honey for the maple syrup.

Add, along with the maple syrup, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, and the grated zest of 1 lemon or orange, preferably organic. When you punch the dough down, knead into it a small handful each of currants and chopped walnuts, pecans, or almonds. Bake as directed for the basic rolls, but omit the salt from the glaze. After the rolls have been brushed with the glaze and are
out of the oven, make an icing of sifted confectioners’ sugar mixed with just enough lemon or orange juice to allow it to drizzle from a spoon. Drizzle a cross over each slightly cooled bun. Have the Easter bunny bring you a basket of these.

Cut the buttermilk back to ¾ cup, heating, with it, 1½ cups canned unsweetened pumpkin or leftover fresh butternut squash purée. Cut the lukewarm water in which the yeast softens back to ¼ cup. Leave as is for a subtly pumpkin flavor, or make it sweet with classic pumpkin pie flavors: Add 1¾ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (or ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg, and a few dashes of ground cloves) when you add the pumpkin. Another option: Knead in ½ cup or so of chopped toasted pecans toward the end of kneading in the flour. Then, as these gems of the fall bake, instead of the sweet-salty glaze, make up the quick but voluptuous maple glaze on
page 155
. Let the rolls cool slightly before drizzling this amply over them.

M
AKES ABOUT
12
BUNS

If you are a devotee of sticky buns and/or cinnamon rolls, with or without nuts, you will be thrilled with these—perhaps the best version of either you may have come across.

The brown sugar and butter are used twice—you’ll be using part in the sticky topping and part in the filling. The sweet-salty glaze that accompanies the Glazed Maple Cornmeal Rolls on
page 176
and the Maple Cornmeal Butterhorns on
page 182
is not needed here.

⅓ of the dough from a recipe of Glazed Maple Cornmeal Rolls (
page 176
)

Vegetable oil cooking spray

6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature

6 tablespoons brown sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

½ to ⅔ cup chopped walnuts or pecan halves

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon cinnamon

1.
On a lightly floured bread board, roll the
dough out into a rectangle about 12 inches by 16 to 18 inches.

2.
Let the dough rest for a moment while you make the topping for the rolls: Spray a 10- to 12-inch round pan (or iron skillet) with oil. Then smear 2 to 3 tablespoons of the butter over the bottom of the pan, and sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the brown sugar over that. Next, drizzle the maple syrup over that. Sprinkle the nuts of choice over the syrup.

3.
Now return to your dough rectangle. Smear the remaining butter over the rectangle and sprinkle it with the remaining brown sugar. Last, shake some cinnamon liberally (to your taste) over the whole dough. Roll up the cinnamon dough from the long bottom edge up (rather than from short side to short side).

4.
With a sharp knife, cut the cylinder of rolled dough into circles (which will squish down a bit into ovals) about ⅓ to ½ inch thick. Place the slices spiral-side up in the pan, on top of the nutted maple-sugar mixture, leaving about 2 inches of room around each roll. Cover the pan, place in a warm spot, and let rise until the rolls have risen to where there is not much space between them, 35 to 40 minutes.

5.
In the last 15 minutes of this period, preheat the oven to 375°F. When the buns are ready, bake them until they are brown and crusty on top and have expanded to the point that the filling is invisible, 20 to 22 minutes.

6.
Have ready a plate of slightly larger diameter than the pan in which you’ve baked the buns. Within 5 minutes of removing the buns from the oven, reverse them out onto the plate (wait any longer and the sticky mixture will harden, and you won’t be able to get them out). Let cool for at least 15 minutes before eating them. The sticky, walnut-studded syrup hardens slightly, making an almost-but-not-quite-crunchy topping. Just unbeatable.

M
AKES
16
BUTTERHORNS

⅓ of the dough from a recipe of Glazed Maple Cornmeal Rolls (
page 176
)

Vegetable oil cooking spray

Unbleached white flour, for kneading the dough

About ⅓ cup butter, at room temperature

1 recipe of Sweet-Salty Glaze (
page 179
)

1.
Form the dough into 2 large balls. Spray a baking sheet with oil.

2.
Lightly flour a bread board and roll each ball out into a circle about 12 to 14 inches across and about ¼ inch thick. Smear each circle lightly with butter. Cut each circle into 8 wedges.

3.
Roll up each wedge starting at the wide end and working toward the point, forming a sort of miniature croissant. Curve each roll slightly, making a crescent shape, and place it on the oil-sprayed baking sheet.

4.
Let the rolls rise until not quite doubled in bulk, 30 to 40 minutes.

5.
About 15 minutes before the end of this period, preheat the oven to 375°F. When the rolls are ready, bake them until deeply golden brown, about 15 minutes. Glaze them with the Sweet-Salty Glaze, and return them to the oven until the glaze is shiny and browned, another 5 to 8 minutes.

• • • • • • • • • •

Rich with eggs, butter, and milk, spoonbread is considered by many to be the ne plus ultra of cornbread. It’s “the apotheosis of cornbread,” according to Southern culturist Redding Sugg (in a famous 1974 article that appeared in
Southern Voices
). And, to John Edgerton, author of the definitive
Southern Food
, it’s “the lightest, richest, and most delicious of all cornmeal dishes, a veritable cornbread soufflé.”

Spoonbread, essentially a cooked mush of either white
or yellow cornmeal, is lightened with eggs, either whole or separated, and baked in the oven. It proves, again, the generous versatility of corn-based breadstuffs in meeting the full spectrum of human needs, from survival to celebration.

I was first introduced to spoonbread by Miss Helen Kay, a much-loved neighbor and adopted grandmother with whom I spent many happy childhood afternoons cooking in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. As I recall, the casserole dish had just come out of the oven when I conveniently dropped in around suppertime. She told me what was in it, and that it was so named because it was a bread you spooned out of the casserole onto the plate. (As it turns out, she may have been mistaken about that: Some scholars say that the bread’s name derives from
suppawn
, the Native American word for “porridge,” not from the utensil. But there’s no proof either way.)

I eyed the casserole with the skepticism of childhood:
spoon
bread? Bread was something you baked and sliced, held and made sandwiches of, toasted and buttered, not something moist and fragile you ate with a spoon. But, because I loved Miss Kay and had had many happy food adventures with her, I politely nibbled a dollop of spoonbread. I liked it from the first bite, though it was subtle for my taste, and too
not-bread
. But then, I couldn’t stop eating it; I had one bite, then another, then another. By the last, I loved it. This is a problem for spoonbread fans generally: We don’t know when to stop.