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The secret to the best homemade cornbread

Cast-Iron Cornbread
Serve straight from the skillet or unmold before cutting into wedges.
(Evan Sung / For The Times)
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This isn’t a great cornbread for vegans. It’s an amazing cornbread. Period. A combination of baking powder and soda with cider vinegar takes the place of eggs to make this cornbread extra tender after baking. To replace the creamy richness of butter, oil is mixed with naturally sweet oat milk in the batter. The result is a flavorful just-sweet-enough cornbread that doesn’t have a hint of dryness.

Here are the reasons why you should try a vegan Thanksgiving menu of classic dishes like sweet potato casserole and bread stuffing and tips that make it easy to pull off.

Cast-Iron Cornbread

45 minutes. Serves 12.

Ingredients

  • ½ cup grapeseed or other neutral oil, plus more for greasing pan
  • 1 ½ cups fine stone-ground yellow cornmeal
  • 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
  • 2 cups unsweetened plain oat milk
  • ½ cup organic sugar
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Instructions

  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9-inch cast-iron skillet, or other heavy ovenproof skillet, with oil.
  2. Whisk the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. Whisk the oat milk, sugar and oil in another bowl until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is emulsified. Whisk in the vinegar to blend, then pour into the dry ingredients and whisk gently until smooth. Pour the batter into the prepared skillet.
  3. Bake until golden brown, about 35 minutes; a toothpick inserted in the center of the cornbread should come out clean. Cool in the skillet on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Variations

  • Sage cornbread: Sprinkle fresh sage leaves all over the top of the batter before baking.
  • Rosemary cornbread: Stir 1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary into the batter and sprinkle rosemary needles on top of the batter before baking.

Make ahead: The cornbread can be baked up to 12 hours before serving.

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