What to Use If You Run Out of Cornmeal When Baking Bread
Remember that romance we had with sourdough bread? It was an unusual moment in the sun for yeast. Some people had extended, public romances about bread on social media, while others had short dates that were nothing more than dead sourdough going gray in the fridge. If you’ve really gotten to the baking stage, you’ve probably noticed that nearly all sourdough bread recipes call for cornmeal. Turns out you don’t need cornmeal to make flavorful rustic bread, but you do need something grainy.
Parchment has several disadvantages
Let’s get that out of the way: there’s a parchment paper route. Technically, you can get around this whole problem with additional ingredients by placing the finished and shaped bun on a sheet of parchment and baking it that way. Your bread will rise and bake, and you can peel off the parchment easily (because it’s basically non-stick). But you may run into some problems. The biggest problem is that the parchment can stick to the bread and it is not known if it will stick to the bread until the bread is baked.
Second, most lean dough (bread that does not contain butter, sugar, or eggs) is baked at a high temperature, typically around 500°F or higher. Most parchment paper temperatures are listed on the box up to 400°F or 450°F. When exposed to higher temperatures for extended periods of time, parchment paper may burn, become brittle, and begin to fall apart when handled. This is enough to make you uneasy. Also, if you use a roaster to bake bread, the parchment may leave creases or deep grooves on the sides. Appearance isn’t everything as long as the taste is great, but biting on stuck scraps of parchment is just disgusting. Besides, why waste parchment when you can use something edible?
Think oatmeal, seeds, or crushed corn flakes.
You need a material that creates a barrier between the dough and other surfaces. The ingredient must not be readily absorbed into the dough, must have a neutral or complementary flavor, and must not melt, burn, or release harmful chemicals at high temperatures. Wholemeal has traditionally been the bread buffer of choice because it meets all of these criteria: grainy, neutral in flavor, and it doesn’t burn.
If you don’t have cornmeal (or don’t like it), these fancy ingredients are fine: rolled oats, seeds (hello, all bagel seasonings), or cereals like crushed cornflakes. If you decide to forego the cereal rabbit hole, use plain, dry cereal with no fruit or sugar icing. The fruit will burn and the icing may melt in the oven, not to mention they may ruin the taste.
If you’re making multi-grain bread, it can be a nice touch to reflect the seeds inside the loaf for texture and flavor. Be sure to use whole seeds, such as whole flaxseeds, rather than ground ones—seeds and nuts are high in natural oils, and when crushed, these pressed oils are more prone to burning in the oven.
For the same reasons, anything too finely ground, such as flour or even finely ground cornmeal (coarse is preferred), should be avoided. The fine powders quickly soak into the sticky surface of the dough, which becomes sticky again, prompting you to add more flour to keep the dough from sticking, which can lead to lumps. Crushed grains can also burn in places, forming a clumpy layer of flour with each bite.
Don’t let that empty cornmeal jar stop you from rekindling that messy sourdough starter. You may find that you have other ingredients that work great and maybe even make your boule taste better than last year.