Last-Minute Thanksgiving Recipes: Pumpkin Cornbread
By Jennifer A. Freeman in Food on Nov 27, 2013 8:30PM
This is the recipe that makes an appearance at Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner and is usually requested sometime in March by a coworker who had a sample a few months before. You probably have most of the ingredients in your pantry and while it requires a little bit of hands-on work, it’s not intimidating like some from-scratch baking recipes can be. This cornbread is gluten-free, but not vegan, because lots of dairy keeps it moist and prevents the dreaded cornbread crumble.
If you forgot that Mom asked you to bring a side dish to share tomorrow, this can be easily prepped tonight and baked in the morning and you’ll impress everyone with your newly found baking skills.
Get creative with your presentation. This cornbread can be made in a loaf pan, a round cake pan or muffin tins. The 45 minutes a loaf pan needs to cook for can get exhausting and there's not as much cornbread to share with coworkers and friends. We found an ingenious mini-loaf pan at the Chopping Block at Merchandise Mart. It’s one single pan but you get eight cute loafs of cornbread. We wrapped each loaf individually and set half aside for Thanksgiving and shared the rest with friends.
The batter doesn’t need to be adjusted for different pans, but just keep an eye for when it’s done. The top will start to brown slightly and a knife inserted into the middle will come out clean. Larger pans will take longer; muffins will take the least amount of time. We have faith in you. You can figure it out.
Pumpkin Cornbread Recipe
Dry Ingredients
2 cups cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or just a dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, whatever fall spices you have around)
Wet Ingredients
6 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup buttermilk (regular milk will be just fine if you don’t want to buy buttermilk just for this)
1 cup sour cream
1 egg, beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin (about ¾ of a standard size can)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare your pans - Grease a loaf pan, line muffin tins, etc. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix together all the wet ingredients in another bowl.
Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry. Make sure dry clumps of cornmeal aren’t hiding in the bottom of the bowl. Pour mixture into your prepared pan. Muffins and mini-loaf pans will take about 22 minutes to cook. Start looking for browning at 20 minutes. Your cornbread will be done when a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. A large loaf pan may take as long as 45 minutes. Serve with lots of butter.