Cranberry Cornmeal Heart Cookies.

As you may have noticed, my birthday cake used nearly 20 egg whites.  Some of these were already saved and stashed in the freezer, but I still needed a few more to make the frosting.  This left me with 4 egg yolks sitting in the refrigerator - egg whites are very easy to freeze, but egg yolks have a tendency to get very rubbery and change their texture unless you add liquid or sugar.  So before their time was up, I started finding some egg yolk-only recipes and loved the way the cookie recipe from Epicurious sounded and adapted it to my liking.  I doubled this recipe and substituted orange zest for lemon, dried cranberries for the golden raisins.

This recipe is originally a slice-and-bake but I can never make the logs of dough perfectly round and they always become too misshapen, so I just rolled the dough out and cut heart shapes (of course), but I think it's completely understandable if slicing and baking is more your thing since I have a habit of making things much fussier and complicated than they need to be.  These cookies are extremely tender and a beautiful golden yellow color, due to the egg yolks and crunchy cornmeal in the dough.  They make a fantastic partner to a cup of hot tea :)

Cranberry Cornmeal Heart Cookies
Adapted from Epicurious
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated orange zest
4 large egg yolks
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup finely chopped, dried cranberries

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.  Stir in the egg yolks and beat well to combine.  Add in the cornmeal, flour and salt and mix again until everything is almost incorporated, then stir in the dried cranberries.  Divide the dough into 2 disks, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour or up to 3 days.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and take the dough out of the refrigerator to thaw slightly.  Roll out the dough to 1/4" inch thick and cut out desired shapes, placing on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Bake the cookies until very lightly golden around the edges and firm in the middle, 8-12 minutes.

Let cool on wire racks and store airtight for up to 1 week.

Cornbread.

To go with some cozy chili for dinner, I made these adorable cornbread sticks.  The recipe comes from another book I picked up in North Carolina last month called "Making Do: How to Cook Like a Mountain MeMa," and you can imagine why I had to buy it!

 

It's filled with recipes like "Daddy's Hoecake," "Real Honest-to-Goodness Butter,""Roasted Possum," and even has a chapter called "For Medicinal Purposes - Really!"  It's definitely one of the most authentic southern cookbooks I own!  This cornbread recipe is called "Cornbread Cake" in the book and I theorize this is because it includes some sugar, therefore not making it regular cornbread.  But I've asked southerners before about putting sugar in their cornbread, and perhaps it's just because they're being nice, but they say if you want sugar, add sugar!  It doesn't make it any less of a "real" cornbread.

I used my cast iron cornbread stick pan for this recipe and got exactly 21 (3 batches), and the recipe doesn't state what size pan to use ("Pour into a greased skillet and bake at 475 degrees for 20 minutes.") but a 9x9, 8x8, any smallish baking pan would work just fine, and I imagine you could get about 12 regular-sized muffins out of this recipe.

Cornbread

Adapted from Making Do: How to Cook Like a Mountain MeMa

1 cup self-rising flour

1/2 cup cornmeal

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 heaping tablespoons sugar

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup water

Preheat the oven to 475 degrees F.  Grease a baking pan and set aside.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking soda and sugar.  In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk and water.  Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until everything is incorporated, but don't overmix.  Pour the batter into the baking pan and bake until the cornbread puffs up in the middle and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Orange Cornmeal Cake.

It's funny how sometimes we associate citrus with warmer weather because where I come from at least, oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes are in season in the winter. But no one can argue that their bright, sunny shapes bring some much-needed freshness to life during the cold months of winter.

I found this recipe on Orangette recently and knew it would be a welcome addition to our Sunday dinner with my sister-in-law and brother. Rachel has Celiac disease, so it needed to be gluten free, and I substituted the cake flour with my favorite gluten free flour but made no substitutions other than that and using orange zest for lemon, and serving it with vanilla bean frozen yogurt instead of whipped cream.

This is how I prefer my cornmeal - sugared and dolled up, and when people ask if I like my cornbread sweet, the answer is absolutely, positively, yes. (Sorry to my southern friends!! <3)
















Orange Cornmeal Cake with Apricot Jam and Frozen Yogurt
1 1/4 cups cake flour
6 tablespoons fine cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
Grated zest of 1 orange (or lemon)
To serve:
1/2 cup apricot jam (or your favorite)
Frozen yogurt, ice cream, or whipped cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a 9'' round cake pan with baking spray.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt and set aside.

Cream the butter, zest and sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the vanilla and eggs. Add the dry ingredients and the milk alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Spread the batter in the cake pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan, and when ready to serve, invert onto a plate. I sprinkled mine with powdered sugar and put the jam in the middle for presentation purposes, but you could obviously just slice the cake and serve the jam and frozen yogurt on the side, letting people take as much as they please.

My niece Keira put sprinkles on her frozen yogurt and had 2 slices of this cake. Kid-friendly is always a plus, right? :)