Trying Out a New Recipe for Corn Masa Based Cornbread

I've got a bunch of Corn Masa (corn flour) up in the cupboard that I bought for general cooking and baking use up in the cupboard and I thought I might as well use it. One of the most obvious uses that I could come up with is Corn Bread! Corn Bread is often made with much larger pieces of corn, known as corn meal. Masa is ground and pre-cooked, and is often used to make tortillas. I've never actually used it to make corn tortillas though. I often just make a masa bread topping to some baked dish. But it's been pretty hot here, so I haven't been making many baked dishes.

First I started by setting everything out I thought I'd need next to my mixer.

I'm using this recipe, which calls for the following:

1½ cups masa harina
½ cup flour (any type; I used white whole wheat)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup honey
1¼ cups milk (any type; I used rice milk)
4 tablespoons butter, softened

I don't particularly like eggs, so I usually replace them with flax. The replacement is pretty easy. You just use a tablespoon of flax and 2 tablepoons water. Some call for 2.5 tablespoons, but good luck getting in a half of a table spoon. :P

I start with measuring out the masa flour and normal all purpose flour. I used a half-cup for simplicity.

You'll want to add the flour together into a mixer or bowl to mix it together.

After I put the flour into the mixer, I decided I should put the flax to the side to allow it to gel. When you add flax and water together, the flax turns into a goey sort of mixture.

This flax is a bit old. I should have tried to use it up a bit faster. It doesn't really rise the same as it used to, but I hoped it would be fine.

I measure out 2 tablespoons of flax, to replace the eggs in the recipe.

I measured out the tablespoons of water for the flax egg replacement from a small dish, for ease of measurement.

Next I added the baking powder to the flour for mixing.

I didn't really need to mix the dry flour with an electric mixer...but it sure does save time and is kinda fun!

After it's mixed a bit you can add two of the tablespoons of butter. The rest is used to butter the pan.

The butter mixing in makes for a much better gif and use of the mixer.

Now it was time to mix the wet ingredients, so I moved the flour of of the mixer, and measured out a 1/4th cup honey. I put a bit much in the measurement cup, but it shouldn't make too much of a difference, other than in the bit that I spilled while moving it over to the mixer.

I made sure to pour the flax mixture in first, so the honey wouldn't just stick to the bowl. Though perhaps mixing the dough might have removed most of it. This ensured it wasn't an issue.

The mixing whisk also makes a pretty good holder for the measuring cup to ensure the honey drips out into the bowl.

Next up is the "milk". I used "Original" almond milk, as I don't tend to keep milk around, being lactose intolerant. I find almond milk better for cooking than soy, plus I try to limit my soy intake. Since sweetness isn't a huge factor in this recipe, there's no need to use unsweetened almond milk. Though there is quite a bit of sweetener in artificial milks.

I then buttered my iron skillet with a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil, to limit the total amount of butter just a bit. I then headed it just a bit. Only to realize that I'm an idiot, and it's a 12-inch pan, and the recipe calls for an 8-inch one.

Oh well! Switch to a glass dish!

This was a bit difficult, since I had already buttered the skillet, but not overly so.

I don't know if it was due to the baking powder being a bit old...or the flax also being a bit past it's prime...or just the recipe...but it ended up a bit...flat.

It was never the less very good! Perhaps a bit dense...but some people things are. Doesn't mean they're not worth enjoying.