Cornbread Cookoff

Male Speaker: So today, that's what we plan to show. Mark Bittman writes a column for the Times called the Minimalist. Female Speaker: He's got a lot of pressed. Male Speaker: Yeah. Female Speaker: From you. Male Speaker: Because I like this guy. I've never met him. But he writes a column called the Minimalist every week in the Times and he did an article on cornbread, and I love cornbread, and I think a lot of people do. So, I thought - what? Female Speaker: I do. Male Speaker: Okay. So I thought, today we'd try to make Mark's cornbread versus a mix that I use. So, Mark Bittman has this TV show called 'Mark Bittman Takes on America's Chefs' or something like that, where he goes to a fancy restaurant and the chef makes some fancy food, and then he tries to simplify it. He just makes it kind of simple. And yeah, it's a good shows, I kind of like that take, where he's just trying to take all these fancy stuff and make it simpler. So that's what I like to do. So I thought we take here his recipe for cornbread and fit it against this cornbread mix. Are you ready? What is going to be first? So, the Mark Bittman recipe says to take four tablespoons of butter, or lard, or bacon drippings, or olive oil, and you put it in your eight-inch pan, and you put it in the oven let it melt. Alright, so while that's melting, we are going to make the corporate mix, two cups of this. This is some honey that we've got, and kind of see I think it's Tupelo honey. Female Speaker: It actually came from Tina Galuka. Male Speaker: savannahbee.com. Female Speaker: I believe this honey took them on. Male Speaker: Oh! Sorry, alright. Female Speaker: It's not real fun. Male Speaker: Well, I'll clean it up. Female Speaker: I think your butter is burning. Male Speaker: It's almost melted -- act quickly again. I am going to add in the dry ingredients. I have left the Mark Bittman hot pan with butter. So we are going to let that sit just for a second. This is the biscuit mix. We are going to put this in the oven at the same time. Okay, so Mark Bittman says, combine dry ingredients. I already did that. Mix the eggs into the milk and then stir. So for the dry ingredients from Mark Bittman, there is more sugar, while there's quite a bit of sugar I thought, and he says, use a medium cornmeal, and I couldn't find any medium cornmeal at the food court, but I found this -- Female Speaker: We found Bob's. Male Speaker: Bob's cornmeal, coarse grind. So, there's definitely going to be a difference between the two cornbreads. Well, let's see what happens. With a few swift strokes, what a special tool called the fork. Bring a hot pan, preheating the pan with the butter, I've done that before with other recipes and it gives a really nice crust. So let's see what happens here. You could also cook it in a cast iron pan, I have done that before, and we are going to have an episode about cast iron cooking. How to season your pans, and how to keep them going? You can buy them in yard sale, for like a buck, and they are great. I like cast iron, it's my favorite cookware. Okay, both of them go in the oven, eight-inch pans - they don't fit. Will that make a difference? Female Speaker: Yeah. Male Speaker: And here we go, so now we wait 25 minutes, and then we bring Joan in to taste. Female Speaker: She must be nervous. Male Speaker: She must be very nervous for her repeated appearance. She is the green room, right now. Female Speaker: Hen, are you hungry? Is it time for your lunch? Male Speaker: Special. Lunchtime meal for Henry. Oh, turn the time knob. Female Speaker: -Mine is self tooting. Male Speaker: I think they need to go in one more time. I like the one on the bottom here. That looks pretty done. It still needs a little more time I think. Female Speaker: That is yellow. Male Speaker: So substantial difference here. This is the underside of the cornbread mix one, this is the top. I think the underside looks better actually. The Mark Bittman recipe one took longer to cook, but even definitely -- visually it just looks better. Female Speaker: Which one are you having first? Male Speaker: This is Mark Bittman, nice crunchy top. Female Speaker: Um! Good texture, nice moist flavor. Female Speaker: Would you eat it again? Female Speaker: I'll definitely eat it again. Male Speaker: Yes. Female Speaker: Would you eat it itself? Female Speaker: Yeah. Well, cake like texture. You could definitely taste the honey, but I like the sweetness of the sugar, a clear winner. Male Speaker: Clear winner. You heard it from Joan. Female Speaker: Um! Clear winner. Male Speaker: Nice top. I had cornbread once that the guy made it with the a can of creamed corn, so I want to try that. We'll do a little experiment on the next episode about that. But I like little curls of corn in the cornbread. I think Mark Bittman wins, and it's not that much harder than taking the stuff out of the mix bag. I mean you are just mixing together flour cornmeal, baking soda and salt. Female Speaker: Bob's. Male Speaker: Bob's. Female Speaker: What is Bob? Male Speaker: Oh, Bob is the cornmeal that we used in the --. Female Speaker: He needs some credit too. Male Speaker: Right, Bob's corn, coarse cornmeal. Now definitely this is a - I think this is much better. Good.