I recently dined at Marcus Bar & Grille and loved their cornbread. Are they willing to share the recipe?
— Kishan Patel, email
Executive chef Gary Caldwell explained that the cornbread served in individual cast-iron skillets at the restaurant is adapted from a loaf recipe in restaurant owner Marcus Samuelsson’s “The Red Rooster Cookbook: The Story of Food and Hustle in Harlem” (HarperCollins, 2016). If you want to duplicate the restaurant’s presentation, this recipe will make enough batter to fill 6 6-inch cast-iron skillets.
Marcus Bar & Grille garnishes their cornbread with whipped butter and a bit of maple syrup.
The original recipe suggests the optional addition of 2/3 cup fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels, which the restaurant does not include.
The resulting cornbread is sweet, a little bit spicy from the Aleppo pepper, and very moist and tangy from the sour cream and buttermilk. Aleppo pepper is available at specialty spice shops and online.
Marcus Bar & Grille’s M’s Cornbread
- 1 cup cake flour
- 1 cup yellow cornmeal
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Aleppo pepper
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- 1 3/4 cups sour cream
- 1 1/2 cups full-fat buttermilk
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Heat oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, Aleppo pepper and salt.
In another large bowl, whisk together sour cream, buttermilk, eggs, egg yolk and melted butter. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake until the bread is browned and pulling away from the sides of the pan and a skewer poked into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.
Cool cornbread on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the sides of the pan to loosen the sides and turn the loaf out onto the wire rack. Let cool a few more minutes before slicing.
Serves 8.
Per serving: 371 calories (percent of calories from fat, 36), 7 grams protein, 53 grams carbohydrates, 23 grams total sugars, 1 gram fiber, 15 grams total fat (8 grams saturated), 107 milligrams cholesterol, 409 milligrams sodium.
From the menu of ... Marcus Bar & Grille, 525 Edgewood Ave. SE, Atlanta; 470-890-1700, marcusbarandgrille.com.
Is there a recipe from a metro Atlanta restaurant you’d like to make at home? Tell us and we’ll try to get it. We’ll also test it and adapt it for the home kitchen. Because of volume, we can’t answer all inquiries. Send your request, your address and phone number to fromthemenu@gmail.com and put “From the menu of” and the name of the restaurant in the subject line.
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