Mexican Corn Bread

An impromptu bake – Mr Ranty was cooking up a storm , Elvis chilli (his phone miss-spelling Evil chilli) and I thought some Corn Bread would go nicely with it.
I’ve checked a couple of books I have and I couldn’t find anything that appealed to me, so I’ve decided to just try throw a few things together and hope for the best.
I also didn’t think of it until afternoon, around 3 pm, so I had to use some commercial yeast in the dough – something that I try to avoid as such as I can.

Mexican Corn Bread
100g white starter (100% hydration)
150g double cream
205g water
230g corn flour or very fine corn meal
230g white flour
¾ - 1 tsp dry yeast
3 Tbsp sugar
1 small jar of sweet corn (drained) - I use Green Giant, they are my favourite
1 ½ tsp salt

For topping :
1 small chilli, sliced (optional)
Cheddar cheese, grated

Place starter, cream, water, flour, yeast and sugar in a free-standing mixer with a dough hook attachment, mix on speed one for 6 minutes, leave to autolise (rest) covered with a tea towel for 20 minutes, add salt and corn and mix for another 2 minutes but on a faster setting - speed two.
The dough will be very wet and yellow, with lots of corn shining through. You have no idea how much self-control it took for me to put that whole jar into the dough - I love LOVE corn!! Mr Ranty has to hide it from me whenever he is making anything with tinned corn, I can eat it all day long!!


Place the dough into an oiled bowl, cover with plastic and leave in a warm place for about 3 hours. It wouldn't have doubled, but you should definitely see some increase in volume. Pour the dough out on an oiled surface and try folding it a little bit just to distribute corn evenly throughout.

Line a square baking tin with baking parchment and plonk the dough into in, smooth the dough out with your fingers, spread it out to cover the whole tin. Cover the tin with plastic and place it in a warm place for another 1.5 - 2 hours, until the dough starts looking quite puffy.

If using chilli (you can use fresh one or pickled or not at all), slice them up thinly and scatter them across the top of the dough. Grate cheese directly onto the dough, just enough to cover the top, don't over-do it, so it doesn't get too heavy while it bakes.

Place in a pre-heated oven and bake for 10 minutes at 210C, turn the temperature down to 190C and bake for another 10 minutes. Rotate the loaf around and bake for further 15 minutes at the same temperature 190C.
Take the bread out of the oven and cool for about half an hour or so, the bread is delicious while its still warm, great for dipping into Mr Ranty's chilli.
It is also good the next day with lashings of butter on top. The texture is wonderfully soft and very crumply, not too sweet and not too spicy.

Comments

  1. You should have a stall at Borough Market ! Yummy

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  2. Hi there!

    You mentioned that you would've used 100% sourdough starter in this recipe if you had the time. That's how I'd like to prepare it as well.
    What changes would need to be made to this recipe if omitting the dry yeast?

    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, if you want to do it pure sourdough, just omit the yeast and extend proving time by an hour - for both initial and final prove
    Good luck

    ReplyDelete

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