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Corn Bread
1 cup corn meal 5 cups white flour 1 tablespoon sugar 2 teaspoons salt 2 tablespoons butter 1 1/2 cups water and milk 1/2 yeast cake dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water Prepare and bake this recipe the same as for fruit bread, omitting the raisins.
This is a yeast bread, not the quick-baked skillet cornbread of the American South — the cornmeal is a minority partner to five cups of wheat flour. Two things need attention before you start: the recipe leans on a companion fruit bread recipe for its method, and the liquid quantity is on the low side.
- Half a yeast cakeCompressed yeast cakes of the period varied in size, but if this is the small cake of roughly 0.6 oz, half of it corresponds to about 1 teaspoon of active dry or instant yeast (about half a modern packet). Dissolve dry yeast in the quarter cup of warm water at about 110F.
- The missing method"Prepare and bake the same as for fruit bread" sends you to a recipe not reproduced here. It most likely amounts to the ordinary straight-dough routine: scald and cool the milk-and-water with the butter, sugar and salt, add yeast, work in the meal and flour, knead until smooth, rise until doubled, shape, rise again, bake.
- The liquid is shortOne and three-quarter cups of total liquid against six cups of dry ingredients gives a very stiff dough, and cornmeal absorbs more water than flour does. Expect to add liquid a tablespoon at a time until the dough is firm but pliable — this is the one place the recipe as printed will mislead you.
- Scald the mealPouring the hot milk and water over the cornmeal and letting it stand until warm softens the grit and makes a far less sandy crumb. Meal of the period was often coarser than modern degerminated cornmeal, which benefits from the same treatment anyway.
- OvenBake at 375F for 40 to 50 minutes, until the loaf sounds hollow and reads 195-200F at the centre. The recipe itself specifies no oven heat.
- YieldSix cups of dry ingredients makes two 8x4-inch loaves, or one large pan loaf if you prefer a taller crumb.
- SweetnessOne tablespoon of sugar across six cups of dry ingredients is barely detectable; it does more for the yeast than for the flavour. Two teaspoons of salt is reasonable for this volume, so do not reduce it.
Meatless Cookery belongs to the wave of early-twentieth-century American cookbooks promoting meat-free eating, and its bread chapter includes loaves that substitute corn, rye, oat and barley meals for part of the white flour. During the First World War, US government food leaflets pushed "war breads" of that kind. What distinguishes this recipe from the cornbread most readers now picture is the yeast — a risen, kneaded, sliceable loaf with cornmeal in it, rather than a baking-powder or soda quick bread baked in a hot skillet. The instruction to follow the fruit bread recipe and simply leave out the raisins is characteristic of the book's economy: one method, several loaves.