American lotus cornbread is my favorite recipe made with lotus nuts. It has an incredible texture and flavor that many people will immediately recognize.
I’m almost reluctant to call this “cornbread.” In reality, I think it is more accurate to call cornbread “lotus bread with corn” because while cornbread requires cutting the corn flour with wheat, lotus bread is made with 100% lotus flour!
Here is how to make it! (You can skip to the bottom for a summarized recipe)
You’ll start with large pieces of American lotus nuts. You can use a blender and fine mesh sieve to break them into smaller pieces.
The flour particles will pass through and larger pieces left behind can go back in the blender to break up as well.
The process from here will be nearly identical to making traditional cornbread. The only difference is that you don’t need to cut the flour with wheat!
Go ahead and preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
Then mix together the dry ingredients.
Mix everything together as your are adding hot water to the lotus flour which will form it into a paste.
Now mix the wet ingredients together before adding them to the lotus paste. Finally add in the dry ingredients and thoroughly combine everything to have a ready to bake batter!
Immediately after combining add the batter to a baking dish.
Place in the preheated oven and leave for about 25 minutes or until it has set.
Let it cool before eating and you’re ready to enjoy your lotus bread!
Lotus bread is just one of many incredible ways to utilize the versatile lotus nut!
Lotus Bread
Ingredients
- ½ cup lotus seed flour
- ¼ cup hot water
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- 1 tbsp melted butter salted
- 4 tsp sugar
- ½ tsp baking powder
- 1/16 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
Instructions
- Grind the lotus seeds in a food processor or blender until fine. Sift the flour prior to use.
- Preheat the oven to 375 °F. In the meantime, mix the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and melted butter until uniform.
- Add hot water to the lotus flour and mix immediately. This will form a thick paste (resist the urge to add additional water).
- Thoroughly mix the wet ingredients with the flour paste, breaking up any and all clumps.
- Whisk in the dry ingredients until they are evenly incorporated. If there is anything you want to add to the mixture, do so at this stage. Immediately pour into a buttered dish. In this recipe, we used a 5.5x5.5x1.25-inch ceramic baking dish.
- Bake for ~25 minutes or until just set. Allow it to cool before eating. Shortly after baking, the bread will have a chewier texture than normal cornbread, but after sitting for a few hours, it will transition to a more crumbly texture.
