Jonathan Reynolds's New England Spider Cake

Though I consider myself more of a spartan breakfaster (no more than a bowl of unsweetened cereal with berries and skim milk, or jam-spread toast with yogurt on most days), when Jonathan Reynolds wrote about spider cake in the New York Times Magazine a few years ago, I found myself intrigued by the thought of a pan of Northern cornbread with a cup of cream poured into the middle so that little rivulets ran through the bread like spider legs, enriching and flavoring it.

Nutritionally-speaking, having a slice of this creation is probably not even that much different than smearing a tablespoon or two of butter on toast in the morning. But the recipe confuses me a bit. You make a plain old cornbread batter (well, with sugar, so for the Southerners out there reacting in outrage to me calling this plain and old, I'm sorry), pour it into a butter-coated skillet and then pour a cup of cream into the middle.

Since I used a 10-inch skillet and not a 12-inch as directed, the baking time took longer (about an hour instead of 45 minutes). The cornbread rose a little and turned a gorgeous golden-brown. The apartment filled with a corny, buttery-sweet smell. I pulled the skillet out of the oven (carefully) and let it cool for a bit before slicing in. The center was firm but tender, and the crusty edges had caramelized - and let me tell you, caramel-flavored cornbread is a very nice way to start your day.

But on the bottom of the pan, around the edges, there a milky-looking residue that looked like raw batter. I stuck my finger into the white sludge and tasted it - it wasn't raw batter, but rather hot cream. Instead of running little rivers through the cornbread after I poured it in the middle, the cream had somehow worked its way to the bottom of the pan and then slid down to the edges. When I cut out a slice, it collapsed a bit at the end.

The flavor of the breakfast cake was quite nice, but I have to be honest, a regular corn muffin would be just as good (and I kind of like the dry muffin - it lends itself better to milky tea-dunking). I didn't need to waste a cup of cream to moisten this already perfectly acceptable corn bread, and all that cream is certainly not worth the calories. How spartanly New England of me.

New England Spider Cake
Makes 8 servings

2 cups milk
4 teaspoons white vinegar
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup heavy cream.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine milk and vinegar in a bowl and set
aside to sour. In another bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking soda and
salt. Whisk eggs into the soured milk. Stir into dry ingredients and set
batter aside.

2. Melt butter in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet. Pour in the batter. Pour cream
into the center, slide skillet into the oven and bake until golden brown on
top, about 45 minutes. Slice into wedges and serve warm.

Comments

[Alanna]

Has it been that long ago? I was intrigued by this too, know it's somewhere in the tall stack of unsorted clippings, buried forever no doubt. But now at least there wasn't "much to miss".

[heather]

I made this cake as well--but the cream stayed on the top and spidered out for me in lacy rivulets. Hmmmm. I'm going to try again this weekend. I liked it with apricot jam.

[shuna fish lydon]

Hmmmm. It does seem quizzical that one would add the cream at the beginning of the baking time. If you tried it again it might be interesting to see what would happen if the cream were poured in about 15-20 minutes into the baking time.

But you're right, cornbread is a wonderful thing.

[Rebecca]

Shuna's suggestion is a good one, but I'm also wondering if the size of the pan might have affected the ability of the cream to permeate the batter and spread out the way it was supposed to. Or maybe try again, but use less cream next time if you're using the smaller pan.

Either way, it does sound like a wonderful breakfast!

[tanvi]

I, too, am a fan of the corn muffin- sweet, though, so I guess I am a northerner at heart. Any insight into why vinegar is used? It's the first time I've seen it called for in a cornbread recipe.

[Saffron]

Interesting recipe. My mum use to make the same but without vinegar!

[Luisa]

Alanna - the recipe certainly had a lot of fans, but I wasn't one of them... my colleagues, however, gobbled it up in a matter of hours.

Heather - sounds delicious!

Shuna - I thought the same, interesting to hear your thoughts on this.

Rebecca - I think I might stick to corn muffins the next time, but it was nice to try it out once.

Tanvi and Saffron - the vinegar is used to sour the milk - you could substitute buttermilk for the milk-vinegar combination...

[Natalia]

Hmmm, I'm intrigued by this. It sounds like a wonderful idea and I can't just accept that the cream likes out. I have to crack this mystery of cornbread.

[Colin]

This must be similar to what they do with their blue corn bread at Mad Mex, a small "new Mexican" restaurant chain here in Pittsburgh. They add cream to the recipe, and the bread come out a bit gooey. I don't like it enough to eat a whole slice, but there are definitely people who really love the stuff. Oh, and it's very pretty! :)

[Bill]

When we have made spider cake, the cream formed a layer in the center of the corn bread - delicious!

[Barletta Natatorium]

I made a slightly different version of this bread recently, with a recipe from Marion Cunningham's "The Breakfast Book." My recipe only called for 3 T. sugar, and it recommended preheating the pan. It turned out well, spidery cream throughout. Maybe preheating helps? Either way, a delicious treat!

[Kay Kemp]

Rule number 1 for all cornbread: put a cast iron skillet in the oven with a little oil and let it heat up with the oven. When the temperature is right, pour in the batter. It fries a bit and forms a lovely crust. This probably would have prevented the cream going to the bottom. I made the NYT version, which was delicious--more cake than bread, filled in the center with nice goo.

[Beverly Hasegawa]

I too use a 10-inch skillet, usually with perfect results. This time, though, the cake separated into layers - a creamy one on top, a custardy one in the middle, and cornbread on the bottom - all topped with a thin golden-brown crust. It was quite lovely, rather like a pudding cake. I also use the NYT version so presumably this was the "nice goo" Kay refers to. What I'd really like to know is whether this is how the cake is supposed to come out.