Gluten Free Blueberry Olive Oil Cornbread

From Catherine Tingey, this is a delicious, lightly sweet hearty cornbread perfect for breakfast and tea time.

I don’t bake much anymore, mostly because of needing to avoid gluten, and find many recipes that are based on or simply substitute cup for cup GF flour don’t stack up. For me, the GF recipes that are GF ‘naturally’ so to speak are usually the best, so this one caught my eye. I like to have a sweet bread on hand for breakfast and tea, but find as I get older I need to pack more nutrition into all I consume. No more Krispy Kremes fueling my morning!! Horrors, I know.

Here is the original recipe including Catherine’s notes. My adjustments (things I needed to substitute, not wanting to pull out the mixer…) follow.

Visit Catherine’s site for more variations on the recipe including muffins and no white sugar, and in-depth, lovely guidance in yoga + meditation.

• Line a loaf pan with parchment paper and preheat oven to 350F.
• Mix cornmeal, baking powder, salt and lemon zest in bowl. Add in 2 C blueberries.
• At low speed, whip eggs, egg whites, vanilla and sugar until frothy and air bubbly.
• Slowly add, also at low speed*, oil and yogurt.
• *You want to preserve the air bubbles as much as possible so the bread does not get too heavy.
• Add wet mixture to dry, taking care not to overly mix (i.e. preserve the froth).
• Pour into loaf pan. Sprinkle blueberries and sugar on top.
• Bake 70ish minutes (if using a smart oven with convection setting). Add 5-10 min if using conventional oven.
• Test around 70 min with toothpick in center to see if it comes clean.

My changes
Cornmeal: Here I used a true polenta, as that’s what I had on hand, adjusting to 1 3/4 cup and adding 1/4 heaping cup flaxseed meal. The polenta made for a toothsome crunch in the finished bread that I really loved. I used Farmer Ground, a local to upstate NY polenta available in this area at stores like Hawthorne Valley and Guido’s. The past few years I have been making batches of Ali Stafford’s oven-baked polenta, super easy, super good, and makes plenty so good to freeze to keep on hand. Works for breakfast and dinner alike.

Wild blueberries: I was short about 1/2 cup but there seemed to be plenty in the bread, though I did not have any on top

Sugar: About 1/4 cup demerara (all my pure cane is at the les collines kitchen!) plus 1 tblsp for the top. Demerara is light brown with a slightly larger crystal, which was really nice for the on-top crunch.

Eggs: 2 eggs, no whites (see: didn’t want to pull the mixer out)

Yogurt: Did not have Greek so used about half and half Stonyfield regular Whole Milk + Labneh (love labneh)

Mixing: Since I mixed by hand, I was concerned about aeration– the bread may have been less dense if I had used the mixer, but I loved it as it was.

Oven: Convection toaster at 350, exactly one hour. Let cool for about 5 minutes in the pan, then lifted out onto a rack. The parchment is key! Also, I used a metal loaf pan.

Once cool, I sliced thin and stored in a ziploc in the frig, and also froze some. Delicious as is, at a few days I loved it toasted with a thin spread of butter (I use a vegan one that I like) or almond butter. My over the top favorite was buttered with les collines Strawberry Preserve with Lapsang Souchong. I have always loved the Strawberry LS with cornbread, that smokey edge with the corn is just so right. Next time I make the bread may swirl some right into the batter.

Bon appétit xo