Honey-Butter Cornbread (Sourdough)

I really like this cornbread. It's amazing when it's fresh out of the oven. And I appreciate that it's actually got a decent amount of cornmeal in it. And not too much sugar. A bit -- I do like my cornbread to be a little sweet -- but it's not excessive. I don't like when it crosses the line into cake territory. So this is just perfect.

My main gripe with the recipe is that it's given by volume. Which is a huge pain to work with. Especially when you're using starter that's not at 100% hydration. Super annoying! I've done my best to convert the critical measurements to grams for easier measuring.

I think my only other complain is just that it makes too much. I love a good cornbread, but it's not really TF's thing. And the Kidlet can only eat so much. This recipe makes a HUGE amount! I think next time I'd try halving it and baking it in a 9" square pan or something. Other than that though, great success!

Honey-Butter Cornbread

Adapted from Northwest Sourdough

Ingredients

Starter

• 100g (100% hydration) starter¹
• 125g hard (strong/bread/high grade) whole wheat flour
• 242mL water

Batter

• 1 c. buttermilk²
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 3 large eggs, beaten
• 1/4 c. honey
• 375g cornmeal
• 260g all-purpose flour
• 1/2 Tbsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Directions

Starter

1. Combine the 100% hydration starter with the flour and water.
2. Mix well, cover, and let stand at room temperature for 4-8 hours.

Batter

1. Grease a Bundt pan.
2. Add the buttermilk, butter, eggs, and honey to the starter and mix to combine.
3. In a separte bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, salt and sift in the baking powder and baking soda.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine.
5. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and set aside for 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F).
7. Bake at 200°C (400°F) for 20 minutes³ then reduce temperature to 160°C (375°F) and continue baking for another 30-40 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 10 minutes.
9. Turn out onto wire rack to finish cooling.

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¹ I used recently fed very active starter for this. That said, I think you'd probably also be fine using discard. You're adding more flour and water to adjust the hydration anyway, so that'll refresh it a bit. Maybe not enough to do a proper sourdough where the starter is the only rising agent, but the starter isn't being used for leavning in this recipe (aside from the acid in it reacting with the baking soda, but the buttermilk is also acidic and the yeast isn't really needed to leaven it at all). So, given that, I think discard would probably be fine, I just haven't tested it that way yet. ^Back
2 I didn't have any buttermilk, so I just soured some whole milk with a bit of vinegar: 1 Tbsp. vinegar + enough milk to make a total volume of 1 c. Let stand for a few minutes while you get everything else ready. ^Back
3 The original recipe called for baking at 400°F for the full 50 minutes, but my cornbread was already looking really dark after 30 minutes, so I turned it down to 325°F for the remaining time and that seemed to work well. I think that I'd be inclined to turn the temperature down a bit earlier next time though, but this may mean it needs slightly longer in the oven overall. Use your judgement. ^Back