Pink Cookies with Sprinkles: July 2014

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Trying to be healthier... Cornbread Makeover!

So, we've been trying to "step-up"
being healthy even more than ever!

We've been trying to eat more beans, legumes, veggies and healthy fats and have tried to keep our "glycemic" index down as much as possible Monday-Fridays!
On the weekends we do a little more splurging.

To keep our glycemic index down,
I've been trying to limit using "unbleached white flour" in my recipes to only cookies and desserts, which means it has been a fun journey for me to tweak my bread recipes to use more whole wheat flour and I've also been venturing out and try using oat flour as well.
Since we purchase steel cut oats in 25 pound bags, I have an abundance of them and so I've been grinding my steel cut oats into flour and incorporating it into my baking.

Well, it turns out, you can't completely
use oat flour in a recipe if you want it to turn out,
because oats don't contain gluten and so it behaves differently than wheat flours.
However, after experimenting, I have been able to successfully replace oat flour for up to 1/2 of the whole wheat flour.

When I made up a batch of Bean Chowder for my family, it was just automatic that we would have a delicious pan of Corn Bread to go along with it.
Cooked bean dishes at our house mean "Corn Bread"!

So, I tweaked my Corn Bread recipe to use not only less sugar,
but, less refined sugar.
(took it from 1/2 cup white flour to 1/3 cup raw cane sugar)
(I buy these bags of Raw Cane Sugar at any of our local grocery stores in the Mexican Food Section.)

I also used one cup whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup oat flour
and it turned out to be an absolute success!
It was very hearty tasting, VERY moist and delicious and it had my family begging me to make more!

I'll never
make Corn Bread from unbleached flour again.
Raw Cane Sugar, Whole Wheat and Oat Flour is how it will be made at our house from here on out.