Ah, fall. The squirrel-like part of my personality wants to pack away foods for winter. That's great when I'm canning tomatoes or pickling peppers or freezing vegetables, but it's not great when I overbuy and don't get around to using things as soon as I should.
In this case, my nemesis was fresh corn. Knowing that corn season is just about over, I bought way more than I needed.
Corn starts getting old faster than almost anything else. Picked fresh and cooked soon, it's amazingly good. After few days, it's just okay. Another day or two, and it's time to get creative.
I cut the corn off the cob then "milked" the cobs to get all the juice, then started looking at my food processor...maybe it would take care of the texture problems that exist with corn that's a bit over the hill? Perfect! And of course, I decided to make bread.
While this bread has plenty of corn in it, this isn't your grandmother's cornbread. It's a lightly sweet yeasted bread with a subtle corn flavor that begs for butter. This bread is soft, moist, and sandwich-worthy. I love the smell of baking bread all by itself, but this one was particularly enticing, with the added scent of roasting corn as the bread started browning towards the end of baking time.
Note: When using the food processor, you need to be careful not to overprocess the dough. Process for a minute, then check the dough's consistency and temperature. If it feels warm to the touch, let it rest for a few minutes to cool, then process for another 30 seconds, and check again. It needs to be properly elastic, but it's possible to overknead with a food processor, so don't be tempted to keep going after it's done.
About the author: Donna Currie has been cooking for fun and writing for pay since the days when typewritten articles traveled by snail mail. When she combined those talents in a food column for a newspaper in her area, she realized that writing about food is almost as much fun as eating. She most recently launched the blog Cookistry and has now joined the Serious Eats team with a weekly column about baking.
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