Quick, Easy Cornbread

Searching for a simple side dish doesn’t need to be a production. You don’t always need a showstopper. Sometimes you just need something that you can whip up in under 10 minutes without getting the mixer out or having to go to the store.

This cornbread is that side dish. It’s also moderately sweet, so if you want, it can be dessert too. Or maybe a tea-time snack. I used it as a starchy carbo-sponge to soak up the chili that I made one cold, rainy afternoon.

Listen, I’ll be honest, this is not the most mind-blowing, amazing, delicious, face-melting cornbread that I’ve ever had in my life. But do you know what it is? It comes together in one bowl. There are very few dishes to wash. It tastes good. It’s not rocket science. It’s cornbread.

QUICK EASY CORNBREAD

• 120g all-purpose flour

• 180g polenta

• 70g granulated sugar

• 12g baking powder

• 1 ts salt

• 76g butter

• 235g whole milk

• 1 ea egg

Heat the oven to 205*C (400*F). Grease the sides and bottom of a 9” round pan. Parchment paper the bottom.

Place the flour, polenta, sugar, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the milk so that the butter is still liquid and the milk is just barely warm.

Crack the egg into the dries, mix slightly.

Add the warm butter-milk mixture to the eggy-dries and fold together until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for roughly 20 minutes. Rotate just past the halfway point, around 12-15 minutes in. To be sure it’s done you can stick a knife or toothpick or shish kebab stick in the middle — it should come out cleanly, or with a few crumb clinging, but no batter.

All done!