Sour Cherry Blueberry Corn Bread

I made the Hi-Rise Cornbread from Maggie Glezer’s Artisan Bread Baking Across America. Instead of making two pan loaves, I made two free form challahs and the above bread–kind of a yeasted fruit kuchen or a sweet focaccia.

The Hi-Rise cornbread base has fresh corn and cornmeal in it, and it is lightly sweetened with locally  produced blueberry honey and enriched with olive oil. The topping is blueberries and sour cherries, with a light sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.

It is fabulous warm from the oven, and SPECTACULAR reheated in the toaster oven. This is a bread meant to be toasted to reach its full crunchy corny potential. And roasting is just the best thing to do to fresh fruit.

The crumb of the corn bread is light, more tender and sweet than focaccia, but not as rich as a some sweet doughs can be.

It is just sweet enough. The bread is a nice foil for the concentrated sweetness of the roasted fruit. The light sprinkle of cinnamon sugar is just enough to highlight the flavor of the blueberries and cherries without overwhelming them and drowning out the fresh taste. The corn is a nice summery counterpoint to the fruit. Corn–not just cornmeal but fresh corn–oddly enough, goes very well with blueberries and cherries.

The method for baking this bread is based upon a recipe from Nigella for blueberry kuchen (here and here). I think any challah dough would do, maybe any slightly enriched bread dough. Or, you could just follow Nigella’s recipe . . . Or, you could do as I did and make the Hi-Rise Cornbread (here or here–although I highly recommend the book).

I am sending this over to Yeastspotting.

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Tags: artisan bread, blueberry, bread, breakfast, cornbread, dessert, Focaccia, Fourth of July, kuchen, sour cherry, yeastspotting