A Seasonal Twist On Cornbread

During the fall, we look forward to feasting on a lot of roast turkey and the creamiest batch of mashed potatoes. Another dinner table staple is cornbread, and this year we chose to put a seasonal twist on the classic pastry. As you may know, using pumpkin as a main ingredient this time of the year is on everyone’s menu, so we thought we would add it to our cornbread recipe.

To help us complete this recipe, a crucial addition to our kitchen’s arsenal was needed – Vitamix’s Aer Disc container. The Aer Disc does a great job facilitating our baking process, but it also allows us to master whipping, muddling, foaming, and emulsifying, all within the same container. To do so, the small disc pulls the liquid ingredients through small holes, aerating and emulsifying them. Other ingredients, such as ice and fruits, are agitated into fine-tuned delicate blends, but not puréed. For this recipe in particular, the Aer Disc helped us make the whipped honey butter to achieve a perfect consistency. It also helped the wet ingredients complimenting the cornbread exceptionally.

What is also helpful, is that when we placed the Aer Disc container on our Ascent A3500 machine automatically adjusted the program blend modes to match the container.

The excitement of any holiday is usually due to all the delicious meals and sweets that accompany it. So to help you bake the cornbread in time for the holidays,, follow the instructions below, and you’ll surely be praised at the dinner table.

Take a look at the recipe below:

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon. baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup of buttermilk
1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 400° and grease a 9-inch square baking dish with cooking spray. In a large sized bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda and salt.

In the Vitamix Aer Disc container, add in the pumpkin puree, buttermilk, sour cream, and melted butter first, then add brown sugar and eggs – blend until smooth. Set the Ascent blender speed to variable 1, turn machine on and slowly increase speed to Variable 6. Blend until a hole forms in the center of the mixture, about 5 seconds. Turn machine off and remove the lid.

Pour over the dry mixture and stir until all the ingredients are well combined.

Spread batter in prepared baking dish and bake for 20 to 25 minutes. You’ll know the pumpkin cornbread is ready when you insert a toothpick into the center and it comes out clean. Let the bread cool before slicing into squares.

For the whipped honey butter:

1/2 cup salted butter, softened
1/2 cup whipping cream
3 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Add liquid ingredients into your Vitamix first (honey, whipping cream, softened salted butter), followed by the brown sugar and ground cinnamon and secure the lid. Make sure the Ascent A3500 machine is speed is at the lowest setting. Start the machine, increase to its highest speed, and run for 45 seconds to 1 minute. If needed, do not be shy to use the tamper to press ingredients into the disc toward the end of the run time.

Words: Jon Carlo Tapia
Photography: Jon Carlo Tapia & Olly Evergreen