Live the Live ™

I’ve been substituting maple syrup for honey in a variety of recipes lately, and I found that I prefer it. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a barbecue sauce, a marinade, or, in this case, cornbread. Pure maple syrup just makes the recipe better!

1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour (gluten-free flour works great, too)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 large eggs, beaten
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup real maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a bowl, combine the corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix them together well.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, butter, vanilla and maple syrup.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir them together until they’re just blended. Don’t overmix.

Grease an 8 x 8 pan with oil (I use olive oil or avocado oil), and pour the batter into it.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown.

To make this corn bread gluten-free, simply substitute a GF flour for the all-purpose flour. I used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour with great results.

And to reduce the dairy, oat milk is a good substitute for the milk. (But quite honestly, whole milk really adds to the richness and moisture of the corn bread.)

I even baked this once without the eggs (not on purpose!) and it came out a bit drier, but still really flavorful.