Aaron's Cornbread

I've mentioned in more than a few posts that Aaron makes the most delicious cornbread. He hasn't wanted to blog about it so I'm taking over that duty. This was one of the first, if not the first, vegan recipes he created for me when we started dating. He tweaked it over several months before he was finally satisfied with it. He makes it all the time! His original recipe has wheat flour in it, but I'm blogging about the gluten-free version I made today to take to our Super Bowl party tomorrow (the host is gluten-free). But I've also included the note for the original version if you'd prefer to use wheat flour. As a side note, I quadrupled the recipe when I took the pictures so it looks like a lot more than the ingredients describe!

Aaron's Cornbread (serves 9-12)

1/2 cup non-dairy milk (soy works best)
Large splash apple cider vinegar
1 Tbls. ground flax seed
3 Tbls. water
3/4 cup cornmeal
2 Tbls. tapioca starch*
2 Tbls. rice flour*
3 Tbls. oat flour*
1 Tbls. chick pea flour*
1 tsp. arrowroot powder*
1 tsp. baking soda
Dash of salt
1/4 cup vegan butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
Dash of vanilla extract

*If you're making this with gluten, sub 1/2 cup wheat flour for all of these ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. If you want these to be muffins, line and grease 9 muffin tin wells. If you want these to be squares, grease a 8"x8" or 9"x9" square pan.

In a small bowl combine the milk and vinegar. Set aside. It will curdle and become like buttermilk.

In another small bowl combine the flax seed and water. Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the cornmeal, all of the flours, baking soda, and salt.

In a large bowl melt the butter. Cream with the sugar, applesauce, and vanilla. Then stir in the flax mixture.

Stir in the dry ingredients along with the buttermilk.

Pour evenly into muffin wells or into square pan. (I used two large pans here because I quadrupled the recipe!)

Bake for 10-15 minutes if making muffins or 20-23 minutes if making it in a pan. If you've multiplied the recipe and are using a 9"x13" pan as I do here, bake it for 30 minutes.

Cool, cut into bars, and serve. Excellent with chili.