yellow cornmeal

The torta is really a big cookie whose texture is a cross between a perfect shortbread and the best crumb topping you can imagine.  The addition of almond flour and cornmeal is partially responsible for the cookie’s wonderful texture; the technique claims the rest of the credit. The dough is quickly mixed in a food processor — whir just until you’ve got a bowl full of morsels; you don’t want a smooth dough — and then you pinch off nuggets of the dough and press them lightly into the pan. It’s as if you were baking a pan full of streusel.  You can cut the big cookie into individual pieces or put it out whole and let everyone break off chunks — messy, but fun.

Torta Sbrisolona

(102 grams) all-purpose flour

almond flour

(57 grams) yellow cornmeal

(67 grams) sugar

fine sea salt

cinnamon

(50 grams) unblanched whole almonds, very coarsely chopped

Center a rack in the oven, and heat it to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

Put both flours, cornmeal, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a food processor, and pulse to blend. Drop in the chunks of butter, and pulse, scraping the bottom of the bowl a couple of times, until the mixture looks like coarse cornmeal. Pulsing, pour in the yolk. Using long pulses, process until the mixture is moist and grainy, like wet sand — it should hold together when pinched.

Transfer to a bowl, stir in the almonds and use your fingers to squeeze the dough into small streusel-like morsels; drop the pieces into the buttered pan as you go. When all the dough is in, pat it down gently, just enough to start the morsels on the road to sticking together.

Bake for 34 to 38 minutes, until the top is deeply golden brown. Transfer to a rack, wait 3 minutes, then run a table knife around the torta and invert it onto the rack. If you want to cut it into pieces, turn it right-side-up onto a cutting board, and use a chef’s knife to cut into cookies; return the pieces to the rack to cool to room temperature. If you want to serve the torta as a break-apart sweet, simply let it cool on the rack.

This lightly sweet cornbread has a crunchy, buttery crust, which comes from baking it in a hot skillet. If you have a cast-iron pan, this is the time to use it. The heavy, heat-retaining material will give you the darkest color (which equals the most flavor). But any large ovenproof skillet will work. And if you don’t have a skillet big enough to hold all the batter, you can either halve the recipe or bake the cornbread in 9-by-13-inch pan. (Brown the butter first in a saucepan.) Your bread won’t have the same dark crust, but the moist crumb flavored with brown butter and maple syrup is ample recompense.

Brown Butter Skillet Cornbread

unsalted butter

120 ml maple syrup

530 ml buttermilk

eggs

yellow cornmeal, fine or medium-coarse grind

whole wheat flour

all-purpose flour

baking powder

kosher salt

baking soda

Heat oven to 375 degrees. On the stovetop, in a 11- or 12-inch skillet (ovenproof and preferably cast iron), melt the butter over medium heat. Cook, swirling pan to lightly coat sides and bottom, until the foam subsides and the butter turns a deep nut brown. (Watch carefully to see that it does not burn.)

Pour brown butter into a large bowl. (Do not wipe out the pan.) Whisk the maple syrup into the butter, then whisk in buttermilk. The mixture should be cool to the touch; if not, let cool before whisking in the eggs. Then whisk in the cornmeal, flours, baking powder, salt and baking soda.

If the skillet is no longer hot (cast iron retains heat longer than other metals), reheat it briefly on the stove for a few minutes. Scrape batter back into it. Bake until the top is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into it emerges clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool in the skillet for 10 minutes before slicing.

Melissa Clark bakes tender, flavorful cornbread in a cast-iron pan.

This easy skillet cornbread comes together with just a handful of ingredients, many of which you probably already have on hand. It’s a firm-crumbed but light quick bread that can hold its own as a side slathered with salted butter, or it can be used as a base for <a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1022723-cornbread-dressing">cornbread dressing</a>. The buttermilk gives the toasted corn flavor a pleasant tartness — full-fat buttermilk is preferred, but low-fat will do in a pinch.

Cornbread

unsalted butter, melted,

medium-coarse yellow cornmeal

granulated sugar

kosher salt (Diamond Crystal)

470 milliliters buttermilk,

eggs,

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of a 10-inch skillet or cast-iron pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk and eggs. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to stir until incorporated. Fold in the melted butter. Pour the batter into the prepared skillet and smooth the top.

Bake until the top is lightly browned and the sides pull away cleanly from the skillet, about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely and serve warm or room temperature, or reserve to make cornbread dressing.

Southern cornbread without buttermilk is an easy skillet recipe that only takes a few minutes to whip up and get into the oven.

Easy Southern Cornbread Without Buttermilk (Skillet Recipe)

salt

2% milk

sour cream

vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 425-degrees and place the...

Preheat the oven to 425-degrees and place the cast iron skillet into the oven while you prepare the cornbread.

Add the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, and...

Add the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder to a bowl and mix.

Next, add the eggs, vegetable oil, sour cream,...

Next, add the eggs, vegetable oil, sour cream, milk, and mix.

Remove the skillet from the oven and grease...

Remove the skillet from the oven and grease with butter - be careful it will be hot!

Pour the cornbread batter into the skillet and...

Pour the cornbread batter into the skillet and bake for approximately 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out clean. The top of the cornbread will also be light golden brown.

https://mediavine-res.cloudinary.com/video/upload/ihge3sworievha2q6emo.mp4

Easy Southern Cornbread Without Buttermilk

A New England staple loaf composed of cornmeal mush, flour and a good dose of molasses, anadama bread bakes up moist and a little chewy, with a soft golden-brown crumb that begs for a copious slathering of butter. If you’re wondering about the name, the story refers to a fisherman cursing his wife’s terrible cooking. But she sure did right by this hearty loaf.

Anadama Bread

cornmeal

molasses

softened,

active dry yeast

nutmeg

NYT Cooking

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/04/23/dining/anadama-still/anadama-still-facebookJumbo-v2.jpg

In a bowl, stir together the cornmeal and 1 cup water. In a saucepan over medium-high heat, bring another cup of water to a boil. Add cornmeal mixture and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is very thick, about 10 minutes. Stir in the molasses and 2 tablespoons butter. Transfer mixture to bowl of an electric mixer and cool to tepid.

In a small bowl, stir together the yeast and 1/2 cup water until yeast has dissolved. Add to cornmeal and mix on low speed with dough-hook attachment for several seconds. Add flour 1/2 cup at a time, mixing for several seconds after each addition. Sprinkle in the salt and nutmeg, and continue mixing until dough completely comes away from sides of bowl, about 7 minutes.

Lightly butter a bowl. Form dough into a ball and place it in bowl. Oil a sheet of plastic wrap and loosely cover dough. Allow dough to rise for 1 1/2 hours, or until it has doubled in size.

Lightly grease 2 9-by-4-inch loaf pans. Press down dough and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Shape each piece loosely into a loaf and place each in a pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for 30 minutes, or until loaves have doubled.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake loaves for 45 minutes to 1 hour, or until bread is a dark golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Allow bread to cool in pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto wire cooling rack. Brush all over with remaining softened butter. Serve warm if possible.

The recipe results in 2 beautiful loaves.  They were slightly sweeter than I expected, so next time I'll probably reduce the molasses to 1/4 cup.

Made this recipe with the following changes:
Use 1/4 cup maple syrup
Used olive oil instead of butter
Incorporated about a cup of sourdough starter.

My loaf looks just like the picture and the bread is delicious!

Whew! I almost put in 1 1/4 oz of dry yeast. I was stunned by how much yeast! Fortunately I realized she meant one 1/4 ounce pkg of dry yeast. I buy my yeast in bulk and not in packages.

Waaaay too much liquid. A rare Melissa Clark disappointment.

Some of the butter is also used in Step 3 to butter a bowl. So the butter used in Step 6 will probably be around 2 T (depending on how heavily your butter the bowl).

I just found out where the remaining 4 TBS butter is included: brushing it on the baked bread after putting it on a cooling rack. Step 6...
Maybe I'll include 4 TBS softened butter in the recipe, too, as suggested by Myrna.

I wish this recipe would be amended by adding weights of the flour and cornmeal.

The recipe is much the same as in my trusty old 1947 Prudence Penny Cook Book but with dry yeast subbing for the cake yeast. It has 2T of butter. I believe the extra butter in this recipe is for melting on top after. I never use it all. I’ve made this many times and it always turns out great. I’ve also subbed maple syrup for the molasses and it’s just as delicious.

Do the second rise on the countertop while the oven is preheating.

You overproofed them. In other words, you let them rise too much before putting them in the oven. Google "bread knuckle test" to learn how to time a proper rise.

Used the proof feature on my oven to get 2 good rises. Then removed the uncooked bread in pans to preheat my oven. My loaves sank. They sank more when baked. Help…. How can I avoid this..

This mixture is so wet--more like batter than bread dough. I added another cup of flour, but it never "completely came away from sides of bowl."

Results are tasty--definitely needs butter on it!--but a little dense. Think I will try some different Anadama recipes elsewhere for comparison.

Another Anadama recipe online recommends letting a cornmeal, hot water, flour mixture soak for about 20 minutes to allow the liquid to absorb.  I took that concept and let my cornmeal sit with 1 cup of whole wheat flour in 2 cups of liquid ( leftover whey, here)for an hour before warming to melt the butter and molasses.  I ended up adding about 5 cups of AP flour.  The dough pulled away from the bowl but looked a little wet.  Loaves turned out great!

I've been looking for an Anadama recipe without milk. This one seems to be a rare breed.

@MW Yes, I was going to say the same. The rising times alone are two hours.

Note that the two rise times and cooking times bring this recipe closer to 4 hours instead of the 2 noted at the top of the recipe.

I am having trouble getting this bread to rise. The cornmeal molasses combo is below 120F, so it’s not too hot. But it’s like the yeast isn’t activating. Or is it the amount? I am using .25 ounces of yeast. Should it be 1.25 ounces? That seems like a lot of yeast. Maybe that’s the problem?

My mother gave me this recipe almost 50 yrs ago when I married.  It was from a church cookbook from her hometown in Iowa.  I lost it in a move almost 7 yes ago.  I'm so glad it's now back in my recipe box!

Tried this because I live in (or next to, depending on the story you choose) the town where it was invented. I too found I needed to add a LOT of flour and still ended up with a very sticky dough. Took the loaves out after 45 minutes when my thermometer said they were 195 degrees-ish, but would definitely bake a little longer next time. Husband found the molasses a bit too strong, so will try scaling back to 1/3 cup next time. And there will definitely be a next time.

When exactly does one add in the other 4 tbsp of butter?  Butter never appears after Step 1 (2 tbsp) until buttering the bowl and pans at the end of the process.  The first Thanksgiving, 10 years ago, when I made this bread I was mystified as to why the batter was so dry.  Now I add the rest of the butter during Step 2 and go on faith that is the right point.  Wish The Times would fix this...

It looks to me like the remaining butter is brushed on in Step 6. However, if you improved the recipe by adding more butter to the dough, I commend you--in my opinion, more butter is always better! I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea to replace part of the all-purpose flour with King Arthur whole wheat flour. The additional fiber might help compensate for extra butter, LOL.

This turned out great. I was short of white flour so substituted 1 cup of whole wheat. I don't have a mixer with dough hooks, so I used a wooden spoon to mix in the flour, then my hands. The dough was a bit shaggy so I let it rest for 15 minutes then formed it into a ball to rise. I forgot to brush on butter after baking. The loaves have a nice loft, perfect crust. The taste is amazing.

My notes:

Heat
½ cup molasses
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
6 T butter
Add 1/2 cup cornmeal. Let sit 10 minutes. Cool to 110°.

Stir in 
1 tsp salt
1 1/4-ounce package active dry yeast
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Knead.
325° convection, 25-30 minutes

Made this bread today.  After reading the comments I decided to add the additional butter (melted) into the dough in the final stages.  Also opted to forgo the nutmeg (seemed weird, though some of the other commenters seemed to be enthusiastic about it).  The final product was tasty, soft & a bit sweet.  Husband is a big fan.  Would definitely make it again.

This looks like the old Craig Claibourne recipe.  If so, the butter goes in with the molasses in step 2

Flour can contain highly variable amounts of moisture, depending on a bunch of different factors. Most recipes post a range, but for all baked breads you will always need to adjust the amount of flour depending on your circumstances. Start with the lowest amount (the only amount here) then add until the dough behaves the way it should based on the directions. Some doughs are very wet and some are very dry so you have to just wing it. The good news is that even if you screw up it usually good!

Reduced the butter to 4.5 T.  I put 3 T in the dough, and used 1.5 T to brush on the loaves.  What a great tasting bread.  Really rich flavors.

I share my experience with Anne in that significantly more flour was required than the 4.5 cups stated in the recipient. This was more than a simple adjustment to the amount in my experience. Revising the recipe with weights would probably help. I turned the dough out and finished it on lightly floured silicon mat before the first rise.

I had the same question. After reading the recipe over and over I finally looked up a recipe on a different web site where it clearly states that 2 Tbsp of butter is for the dough and you need some extra for simply greasing the pans brushing on bread. I wish the Times would edit and clarify this recipe too!

I doubled the  salt and thinking about this recipe maybe it should have been 1 TB.<br/>What I did with the remaining 4 TB of butter was I divided it in half . One at a time I  put each pat on top of the  very warm loaf and moved the butter around as much of the bread as I could; I wished I had put down a cloth or paper towel under the cooling rack before so I did not have to clean up the greasy counter.<br/>The nutmeg was a nice touch.

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