Yes I’m fully aware that baking cornbread in tiny tomato paste cans is a bit twee, but I just couldn’t help it. After being served “canned” cornbread at The Tasting Room, I just knew I had to come home and recreate the experience. Just imagine the surprise on your friends and family’s faces when you lift up the can to reveal cornbread inside. It’s just so much fun. And really, who couldn’t use a little more fun in their day? The most time consuming part of this project is preparing the cans. They need to be greased and floured very well.This cornbread recipe is an old favourite, created by my friend, Pam. I have tried many different recipes in the past 20 years, and I always come back to this one. With both cornmeal and cornflour in the batter, the texture of this cornbread is fantastic. The addition of corn and jalapeño add sweet and heat.The batter mixes up quickly in one bowl. A spring loaded ice cream scoop makes easy work of getting the batter into the cans. DO NOT FILL EACH CAN MORE THAN HALFWAY!
If you greased and floured properly, the cornbreads will slide right out. If you missed a few spots like me, some “gentle” coaxing may be necessary.
They are delicious as is or mix up a batch of whipped browned butter to slather on them.
I served them on these adorable safari plates my daughter bought for me.
Ask any of my family members and they will tell you that I am one of the most unobservant people around. I am just not curious about other people and their business. I never stop to gawk at car accidents, I am always the last person to know any of our street gossip and I never notice new haircuts or things like that. My siblings love to tell the following story as a stellar example of how notorious I am for missing the obvious.
In 1999, my dad was sick with kidney disease and heart problems. He needed to have heart valve replacement surgery. After the surgery, the doctor came out of the operating room and told us the surgery went well. I stayed at the hospital a few more hours and then I flew back to Ottawa. Several days later, my sister called me and told me I better come back to Toronto. My dad was fighting an infection and was not doing well. I caught the next flight and went straight to the hospital.
I went directly to his room. I peeked inside and saw a nurse sitting with my dad. He was sleeping. None of my family members were anywhere to be seen. The nurse smiled at me and left the room. I gave my dad a kiss on the cheek and sat down and started talking to him, holding his hand as I sat. It was a warm summer day and I thought it was so strange that his cheek and hands were so cold. After a few minutes I went out into the hall, looking for my mom and my siblings. They all came running down the hall, crying and hugging me. It was at that moment that it dawned on me why my dad was so cold. To this day, I still get teased about how unobservant I can be.
However, there is one place where I am observant – the supermarket. I love to play a little game while waiting in line at the grocery store. I check out the contents of the carts around me. You can usually tell a lot about a person by their choice of groceries. While doing my shopping in the first week of January I inevitably noticed carts full of Lean Cuisine and Weight Watcher’s frozen dinners, diet soda, cans of tuna and lots of fruit and vegetables. This is the month that we typically resolve to eat light and healthy.
Chili is not traditionally known to be a healthy food. Usually made with beef it is high in fat. This chili is made with chicken and therefore much lower in fat and calorie content. The first time I made this chili was at a Potluck dinner at a neighbor’s house. We were standing at the buffet table spooning food onto our plates. The woman standing next to me, had her plate heaped full of the chili I had brought. She remarked how delicious it looked. I smiled and said, “Thanks, I made it.” She asked what kind of chili it was and I answered, “Cashew Chicken Chili.” She almost dropped her plate. It turned out she was fatally allergic to cashews. Hence the name “Killer Chili.”
This chili relies on both dried whole chiles as well as chile powders. The combination of whole chiles and powder add a depth of flavour to the chili that you would not get if you just used chili powder. For the whole chiles, I used both New Mexico and Guajillo chiles. Ancho chiles would also be an excellent choice. I buy my dried chiles on-line from chilly chiles.
The dried whole chiles need to be toasted and then soaked in boiling water to rehydrate them for about 20 minutes. Once they are soaked, I removed the seeds. If , like my sister, you like your chili painfully spicy, feel free to add the seeds as well. The rehydrated chiles get blended with chicken stock and some cashews to create an incredibly flavourful sauce. The cashews add body to the sauce.
Ground cumin, ancho chili powder, chipotle chile powder, salt, onions and garlic round out the additional spices. Canned tomatoes and the pureed chiles create a liquid base for one cut up chicken. Once the chile is done simmering, a touch of bittersweet chocolate is added. The chicken is removed from the sauce once it is done and the meat is removed from the bones and shredded. It goes back into the sauce with some canned white and black beans. Rich, sweet and mildly hot, this chile takes the edge off any roughness in your day!
I have to admit, I didn’t go into this week’s challenge with high expectations. I have been making the same cornbread recipe since 1987, when my friend Pam shared her recipe with me. I love her cornbread. It combines cornmeal and corn flour and makes for a very tender cornbread. I add canned corn to it which enhances the sweetness and finely diced jalapeno which helps to temper the sweetness. All in all a wonderful recipe. I was never tempted to stray from this perfection. However, the Bread Bakers Apprentice Challenge called for making Peter Reinhart’s cornbread recipe this week.
This is the only bread recipe in the book that does not call for yeast. In baking terminology, it’s what is known as a “quick bread” which relies on chemical leavening, typically baking soda and/or baking powder. While classified as a quick bread, this version of cornbread takes 2 days to make. However, day 1 just consists of 5 minutes of time to make the cornmeal soaker. Coarse cornmeal (also known as polenta) is given an overnight bath in buttermilk. I did not have any buttermilk, and as I am at the lake at my cottage, I did not feel like driving 20 minutes to the store, so I just added a bit of lemon juice to the milk to sour it.
The next day assembling the rest of the bread is simple. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a mixing bowl. Stir in brown and white sugar. In a separate bowl, the eggs are beaten and honey and melted butter are mixed into the eggs. This whole mixture then gets combined with the buttermilk soaked polenta. Dry and wet ingredients are combined and some frozen corn is mixed in. I also added a finely diced jalapeno.
The cornbread is baked in a 10 inch pan. I only had a 9 inch pan so I also used some mini loaf pans. The baking dishes are coated in bacon grease and heated in the oven for 5 minutes before the cornbread batter is added. This gives the cornbread a crisp crust. I was not using bacon so I just brushed the pans with vegetable oil and heated them.
I was a bit distracted as I baked the cornbread and did not take my usual step by step photos. For this you can blame my friends Lynnie and Paula. They came up to my cottage to spend a few days with me and we were very busy laughing and drinking wine while I made this. Lest you think I totally slacked off, I did make them cheddar jalapeno bagels on day two of their visit, cornbread on day three and for a final send off on day four I rolled them out the door with tummies full of sticky buns. We also collaborated on an amazing spinach, watermelon, strawberry and halloumi cheese salad. Halloumi cheese is a delicious cheese from Cyprus, somewhat like feta but it is served fried.
The finished cornbread was delicious. I was surprised at how much I loved it. It had a coarse crumb and crunchy crust and was denser than the cornbread I usually make. I will be revisiting this cornbread again, but not too soon. I’m still coming down from my carb loading week with my friends.
I won’t be publishing the cornbread recipe from the Bread Baker’s Apprentice Cookbook as all the challengers have agreed that out of respect to Peter Reinhart, we will only promote his wonderful book and not give away his recipes for free. For an equally delicious cornbread, try my friend Pam’s recipe.
The most time consuming part of this project is preparing the cans. They need to be greased and floured very well.
This cornbread recipe is an old favourite, created by my friend, Pam. I have tried many different recipes in the past 20 years, and I always come back to this one. With both cornmeal and cornflour in the batter, the texture of this cornbread is fantastic. The addition of corn and jalapeño add sweet and heat.
The batter mixes up quickly in one bowl. 
A spring loaded ice cream scoop makes easy work of getting the batter into the cans. DO NOT FILL EACH CAN MORE THAN HALFWAY!
If you greased and floured properly, the cornbreads will slide right out. If you missed a few spots like me, some “gentle” coaxing may be necessary.
I served them on these adorable safari plates my daughter bought for me. 
