Whether you Crumble it into a Bowl of Warm Chili, or Top it with Honey Butter, Embrace Fall with Sourdough Pumpkin Cornbread!
This Moist Sourdough cornbread is cozy and sweet and it’s sure to be your new favorite cornbread when chilly weather comes around and soup season is beckoning! This a great recipe for those looking for creative ways
to use their sourdough discard, or just looking to add more sourdough recipes into their daily life. Whether you’re pulling pumpkins out of your garden and roasting your own pumpkin puree or grabbing a can from the pantry so it can be on the table in thirty, don’t let this pumpkin season pass without trying this recipe!
Why You’ll Love this Easy Pumpkin Cornbread Recipe
It’s So Easy to Throw Together
This is a sourdough discard cornbread, meaning you do not even need to prep your starter ahead of time. To begin assembling this easy recipe, you will melt a pat of butter in your hot skillet by sticking it in the preheated oven for a few minutes. Your going to mix your dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. To your sourdough starter in a medium bowl, add your egg and the pumpkin puree. Dump the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and blend well with a fork. My favorite part of this recipe is carefully taking the preheated skillet and pouring melted butter into the pumpkin cornbread batter, gently stirring until it’s evenly distributed. The hot cast iron skillet retains a perfect coating of butter allowing the cornbread to develop a crisp, golden crust as it bakes!
Enjoy All the Goodness of Sourdough
What makes this sourdough pumpkin cornbread truly special is that it’s made with 100% sourdough discard, so all of the flour is fermented and gentler on the belly. Many sourdough discard recipes are designed only to use up excess unfed sourdough starter. In these recipes, you’ll add regular flour and bake without allowing time for the fresh flour to ferment. The advantage of using only sourdough starter without adding additional flour, is that you get the full benefit of consuming fermented grains. The crumb of the cornbread will be more tender and flavorful, and your gut will be happier!
This easy pumpkin cornbread recipe is also a great way to use up extra discard that you might have building up. I recommend using discard that has been sitting no more than 24 hours at room temperature, or no more than one week in the refrigerator. Otherwise, the cornbread can become overly strong tasting and sour. As long as your starter is relatively fresh, the sweetness from the brown sugar will likely mask the flavor of the sourdough.
With what Type of Flour Should I Feed My Sourdough Starter?
I would recommend using a sourdough starter discard that has most recently been fed with all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour, although your starter will always be a bit of a mixed bag and that’s ok! When making sourdough cornbread, I like to avoid using flours with high gluten content, such as bread flour, which can make the crumb tough.
Don’t Have a Sourdough Starter? That’s Ok!
This delicious pumpkin cornbread recipe can also be made without any sourdough starter discard. All you need to do is substitute the two cups of starter that the recipe calls for with 1 cup flour and 1 cup whole milk. That’s it! Follow the same assembly directions and bake time.
It Can Be Ready in an Hour!
Once again, like all good recipes this one is quick and can be thrown together when last minute dinner guests are expected. The hands-on time required to get this sourdough skillet cornbread assembled and in the oven can be as little as ten minutes. Another twenty minutes in the oven and you can be enjoying warm sourdough pumpkin cornbread with a drizzle of honey!
Gather These Simple Ingredients
The ingredients needed for this sourdough pumpkin cornbread recipe are so simple and minimal.
Butter
Embrace it, love it, don’t replace it! Real butter is so important in this recipe and is responsible for much of the flavor in the delicious sourdough crust.
Pure Pumpkin
What separates this great recipe from traditional cornbread is the pumpkin flavor of course! It really is the secret ingredient that results in both moistness and sweetness. This recipe can be made with either canned pumpkin or homemade pumpkin puree, and it adds such a wonderful fall element to this cozy accompaniment. Not to mention beta carotene! Pumpkin pie filling should not be substituted here, as we are not adding pumpkin pie spice to this cornbread recipe.
Brown Sugar
This sweet cornbread depends on brown sugar for its beautiful color, depth and flavor to accompany the pumpkin flavor. Feel free to substitute white sugar if you’re in a pinch but avoid using honey or maple syrup. While delicious, they will add too much liquid to your cornbread batter. The addition of sugar is what makes this a sweet sourdough cornbread recipe that combats stronger sour flavors that discard starter can provide.
Sourdough Starter
The sourdough starter that you use in this recipe does not have to be freshly fed. Because this recipe relies on baking powder for its rise, you do not need an active starter. We’re using it solely to ferment our flour and add to the flavor of the crumb. However, don’t use starter that has been sitting at room temperature longer than 24 hours or in the fridge longer than a week. The flavor can become too acidic and ruin your cornbread.
Baking powder
This leavening agent will give lift to our sourdough cornbread batter, making it fluffy and light! Remember that by using sourdough discard, we are not getting the natural leavening of an active sourdough starter.
Salt
Balances the sweet and enhances all of the amazing flavors of the corn and the pumpkin.
Egg
The egg in this pumpkin cornbread recipe helps to bind the ingredients together, giving it an even crumb and a nice slice! It also helps the cornbread to have a nice fluffy rise!
Cornmeal
Cornmeal is the bones of this sourdough pumpkin cornbread recipe, so find a good quality, stone ground cornmeal that will give you a perfect texture. I prefer yellow cornmeal, but definitely use what you have!
Making Easy Pumpkin Cornbread with a Kitchen Scale
This sourdough cornbread comes together so easily, especially when you use a kitchen scale to measure out your ingredients. I can’t say enough good things about baking with a kitchen scale. Yes, it can help you with consistency and will certainly elevate your baking to the next level, but the real reason I use a scale is because it makes clean up SO much easier. Say goodbye to measuring cups; all of the ingredients go straight into the mixing bowl. This is really nice when you’re working with sourdough starter which can be sticky and difficult to measure consistently.
Weigh Out Your Ingredients
To use a kitchen scale, simply place a large bowl onto the scale and push “tare” or “zero”. Now you can add your first ingredient, such as your starter, to the bowl. For this recipe you would add starter until the scale read 360 grams. Before adding the next ingredient, you will want to take the scale back to zero by again pushing the “tare” or “zero” button. Add each ingredient this way until everything is in the bowl, then mix together.
Once you start baking with a kitchen scale you will never look back! I’ve taken so many of my older recipes and converted them to weights and it really does improve baking consistency and makes the process quick and clean. Using the internet, you can easily find weight conversions for just about every ingredient you might need, making it very easy to convert your own recipes. If you, like me, spend a lot of time in the kitchen, think about adding a kitchen scale to your tool collection! Here’s a link to my favorite! It’s accurate and super durable no matter how much flour I throw at it!
Serving Your Cornbread
Just like classic cornbread, sourdough pumpkin cornbread goes so well with fall soups and stews. Serve with chili, vegetable soup, or potato soup. However, if your crew is anything like mine, they will be just as happy slathering their cornbread with honey butter or drizzling it with maple syrup!
Keep your cornbread for up to three days, but make sure to warm it up before enjoying it the next day! The best way to keep it fresh is to place it in an airtight container on the counter.
More Sourdough Recipes
Soft and Fluffy Sourdough Brioche
Sourdough Pumpkin Skillet Cornbread with Discard
Ingredients
- 2 cups sourdough starter 360 grams
- 1 cup cornmeal 160 grams
- 2/3 cup brown sugar 133 grams
- 1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 stick butter
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Place a 9 inch cast iron skillet into the oven while it preheats.
- In a large bowl, add cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Mix dry ingredients until well combined.
- In a small bowl, add your sourdough starter, egg, and pumpkin puree. Use a fork to mix together until well combined. Add your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and blend well.
- Place the stick of butter into the cast iron skillet in the oven and allow it to melt completely, covering the bottom of the skillet.
- Once the butter is melted, carefully remove the skillet from the oven and pour the butter into the cornbread batter. Your skillet will be well greased from the melted butter. Stir the butter into the batter and then add the entire mixture back into the skillet. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted is removed clean and the edges are golden brown.
- Allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Sourdough pumpkin cornbread is best served with a slab of butter and maple syrup!
Hi, I want to try this recipe but don’t have a cast iron skillet. If I use a 9×9 metal dish, should I change anything in the recipe?
That should be the perfect size for this recipe if you are not using a cast iron. You may have an extended baking time, so do not worry if it takes a little longer to bake through:)