Appetizer/ Baked Goods/ Side Dishes

Grain-Free, Gluten-Free Southern Cornbread

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Our Southern Odyssey’s Grain-Free Cornbread

No Southern meal has ever been complete without cornbread.  Cornbread and the South goes together like two peas in a pod.  I mean, prepare a complete Southern meal, have it spread out beautifully across the table, everything so perfect.  But if you do not have the cornbread on the table, all of your hard work, on the meal, will go unseen and you will never hear the end of it.  Or at least that’s how it is in our family.  Cornbread is a diverse food.  Not only can it be served as a bread but it can also be served as a side and even the main dish.

My (Valancie) maternal Granddad use to wake-up at midnight every night and take the leftover cornbread from that day, that was left on a plate, wrapped in plastic wrap, in the center of the electric stove between the eyes.  He would cut him a large slice, get him a glass out of the upper cabinet beside the fridge, grab him the gallon of two percent milk from the fridge, and go over to the head of the table in the kitchen and sit down.  Now he would take the cornbread and crumble it in pieces in the glass all the way to the top.  If he got a little too big of a slice of cornbread he would just poke the cornbread down into the glass with his fingers. Because it was all going to fit.  Then he would take the two percent milk and fill the glass to about one inch from the top.  He would sit there at midnight and eat his cornbread and two percent milk concoction.  And when he was done eating he would go back to bed.  He did this every night and everyday my Grandmother would make a new pone of cornbread.  When I was younger I would spend the night at my grandparent’s home and sometimes I would still be awake at midnight when I would hear him in the kitchen.  I have always been a night owl.  So, I would get up and go and sit in the kitchen with him while he ate his cornbread and milk.  He did not talk much at midnight, I think that was because he was still sleepy.  But that was fine, because I was wide awake and I talked enough for the both of us.

Cornbread shares in a few of my fond memories.  That’s what happens when cornbread is such a big deal as it is here in the South.  When we went on our grain-free diet, making cornbread became a little bit of a challenge.  Think about it, the main ingredient in cornbread is corn, and corn being a grain presented a problem.  Were we really willing to say goodbye to a food that identifies so strongly with our roots?  No!!!  There had to be a way.  It has taken us an entire year of trial and error to create this recipe.  A cornbread without corn that a Southerner could be proud of.  Every time we make a pone it never last long.  We crumble it in our vegetable soup, beef stew, and we use it to make our grain-free Thanksgiving Day dressing.  So, if for any reason you do not eat grains or even if you do, our grain-free cornbread is delicious and we hope that you enjoy the recipe.  Because, personally I prefer our pumpkin seed cornbread over the tradition cornbread.  I bet my Granddad would have liked it too!!

If you need instructions on how to grease a cast iron skillet we have provided a step-by-step guide here.

 

Our Grain-Free Cornbread is one of our simpler breads to make.  

Preparing the dry ingredients for the recipe:

Start by preheating your oven to four hundred degrees.  Take a well seasoned cast iron skillet, add about two teaspoons coconut oil to the skillet and place in the oven.

 Organic sprouted pumpkin seeds gives our grain-free cornbread the correct texture.  Without the organic sprouted pumpkin seeds all you have is another bread, not cornbread.  Take three quarters cup of organic sprouted pumpkin seeds and pulse the pumpkin seeds, in the food processor, until they are at a meal consistency.

NOTE: If you continue to pulse the sprouted pumpkin seeds for too long you will get pumpkin seed butter.  So, if you get pumpkin seed butter you will need to eat the pumpkin seed butter and start over making the sprouted pumpkin seed meal.

Place the organic sprouted pumpkin seed meal to the side.  You will add the meal to the other ingredients toward the end.  In a mixing bowl sift the coconut flour, tapioca flour and baking soda, to get out any of the lumps.  Place the sieve to the side and add the pink Himalayan salt directly to the flour mixture in the bowl.  Give the flour mixture a good mix with a spoon, making sure to incorporate both flours, baking soda, and pink salt together.  Set the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients to the side.

Preparing the wet ingredients for the recipe:

Take a glass measuring cup and add one half cup of pure coconut milk with one teaspoon apple cider vinegar with the mother, together.  By adding the apple cider vinegar to the coconut milk you are creating a buttermilk.  Set the mixture to the side, we will be using it in a minute.

Take a small glass microwave safe bowl and melt the ghee in the microwave until the ghee becomes a liquid.  Check the ghee after thirty seconds.  The ghee does not need to be extremely hot, just melted to a liquid state.  After the ghee is melted set the small glass bowl with the ghee to the side so that the ghee can cool a little.

In another mixing bowl crack the room temperature eggs and add them to the mixing bowl.  After all the eggs have been added to the mixing bowl beat with a fork until the egg yolks and egg whites are combined.   Add the buttermilk (pure coconut milk and apple cider vinegar with the mother) to the eggs.  Give the eggs and coconut milk mixture a good mix to incorporate them together.  Next add the cooled, but still melted ghee to the egg and coconut milk mixture.  Mix well.

Combining the dry and wet ingredients to create the Grain-Free Cornbread:

In the mixing bowl with the dry ingredients add the pumpkin seed meal to the rest of the dry ingredients and mix.  Take the bowl with the wet ingredients and pour a little at a time into the dry ingredients mixing and incorporating the wet ingredients into the dry.  Keep adding a little of the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mixing until all the wet ingredients have been added to the dry ingredients.  Mix well.

Remove the cast iron skillet from the oven.  Note: Be careful the skillet will be extremely hot.  Add your batter to the center of the skillet, take your spoon and make sure that the batter makes it all the way to the sides.  Bake the Grain-Free Cornbread for 20 minutes.

Note: You will know when the bread is done because along the edges the bread will begin to pull away from the sides of the skillet and become a light brown color.  Also,  cracks will start to form along the top of the bread.

You can chose to leave the bread in the cast iron skillet or you can remove the bread by flipping the bread onto a plate.  We flip ours onto a plate when we remove it from the skillet and place a dinner knife between the plate and the bread.

You can serve our Grain-Free Cornbread with a soup like our Apple Chicken Stew or you could just eat it with mayo.  It is great either way.

Let us know how you like this grain-free cornbread and what you eat it with.  We would really like to hear from you.

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Remember anyone can be an amazing cook — you just have to find the right ingredients that are right for you — add a little bit of patients — laugh at your failures — and keep trying.

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