Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream

This Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream is my re-creation of a menu description I imagined but never tasted.

On a recent trip to Louisiana, the New Orleans Museum of Art was advertising a fundraiser in City Park with food catered by Pat White, a local chef. The inspiring four-course dinner menu was filled with Cajun and Creole favorites I enjoyed before: Smoked deviled eggs, Fried Green Tomato & Andouille Pie, Beet & Goat Cheese Crostini, Shrimp Remoulade, Grilled Louisiana Gulf Fish; but dessert was unusual – “Strawberry Cornbread Topped with whipped creole cream cheese and Steen’s Cane Syrup featuring Louisiana Strawberries.”

The idea of enjoying this menu under a marquee in a park on a warm March evening after adhering to pandemic lockdown rules and avoiding restaurants for over a year was captivating. I was so-o-o-o ready to bust out of our self-imposed COVID prison and I fantasized about enjoying this delicious meal in a romantic setting. Apparently, others in New Orleans felt the same and tickets sold out before I could get us a spot. Disappointed, I saved the menu, hoping to reconstruct parts of it at home once I assembled the necessary ingredients.

The dessert, however, piqued my curiosity. Although I made strawberry shortcakes and other strawberry desserts over the years and wrote about some of them in this blog (see Mile-High Strawberry Pie* and Strawberry Charlotte Russe**), pairing strawberries with cornbread was a first for me. I love cornbread and I usually enjoy it with savory dishes or for breakfast with honey and butter. I wondered how its inherent grittiness would taste with juicy berries and whipped cream.

I started recreating this dessert by identifying how to prepare the three essential components mentioned in its name: cornbread, creole cream cheese and strawberries.

Cornbread or Corncake? Culinary historians say that combining unleavened shortbread with strawberries was an English invention with the earliest printed recipe dating back to 1588. Those early English shortcakes used shortbread, a crunchy and dry cookie, as a base.

In America, strawberry shortcakes became a shortened dough leavened with baking powder or baking soda. Fluffy soft wheat flour biscuits, scones, sponge cake, cornmeal biscuits, or cornbread provide a base for strawberry shortcake which should be tender but firm to withstand the juicy berries and moist cream.

American cornbread reflects regional differences that arise from using different types of cornmeal and varying amounts of sugar and eggs. Southern cornbread is often minimalist with little or no sugar and smaller amounts of flour (or no flour), while northern cornbread is sweeter and more cake-like. As I was recreating a dessert, I opted for the northern sweeter and richer version.

I experimented with various cornmeal grinds and settled on finely milled cornmeal that produced light but firm-textured cake. The resulting dessert base of flour, finely milled cornmeal, eggs, sugar and butter is more a cake than cornbread; it looks like yellow cake with the subtle taste and character of sweet cornbread. Thus, calling it corncake seems more appropriate than cornbread.

Creole Cream Cheese: Even though I visited New Orleans numerous times over the last ten years, I never encountered creole cream cheese. I learned from online research that creole cream cheese, a soft, fresh cheese, not at all like the solid block called Philadelphia, is Louisiana’s answer to ricotta or burrata cheeses made with skim milk, buttermilk and rennet.

This method of making cheese, originally from France, was brought to Louisiana by French-speaking Acadian settlers after their 18th-century expulsion by the British from eastern Canada’s Maritime Provinces. Acadians called this Caille Goute, or Creamed Clabber (a naturally fermented raw milk), and it was made in family kitchens.

Creole cream cheese, initially made by home cooks and later commercially, was a dietary staple in the area in the 1800s through the 1980s when commercial production ceased. It became nearly extinct when raw milk sales were no longer permitted and Philadelphia cream cheese, an imperfect substitute, was widely available. Within the last decade, however, local chefs and food preservationists started an artisan revival to save creole cream cheese from disappearing, but only small quantities are produced. No wonder I did not see creole cream cheese in New Orleans dairy cases.

The process for making creole cream cheese, however, was preserved by home cooks with recipes available online. I briefly considered making this cheese but decided against it when I learned that the process requires special equipment, takes 72 hours and makes almost half a gallon when I only needed a few cups. So, I embarked on finding an alternative.

On learning that creole cream cheese, often eaten with whipped cream, sugar, and topped with juicy fruit, is used as a substitute for yogurt, a suitable alternative came to mind quickly. Labneh, a drained yogurt also called yogurt cheese, has similar characteristics: soft, fresh, dry and tart. So, I adapted the labneh recipe that I wrote about several years ago*** by adding sugar, Steen’s Cane Syrup, also a Louisiana specialty, and cream. This combination of drained yogurt and sweetened heavy cream creates a luscious complement to fresh strawberries.

Louisiana strawberries: Thinking that most locally grown strawberries in America had similar taste, I wondered why Chef White’s menu specified Louisiana strawberries. Aside from the fact that local strawberries were available in March (Louisiana’s strawberry harvest starts in February), I learned that Ponchatoula strawberries, deep red and super sweet, are a legendary part of the state’s culinary heritage.

Louisiana’s strawberry industry dates to the late 1800s when Italian and Hungarian immigrants started strawberry farms in the warm weather and rich soil. By the 1920s, Louisiana strawberries, grown in southeast Louisiana near Ponchatoula, were shipped nationwide. In 1980 the State of Louisiana designated the local strawberry as the official state fruit. Today, with a decline in family farming and high local demand, Louisiana strawberries, known for their outstanding juiciness, sweetness and meatiness, are eaten primarily within the state. Chef White’s loyalty to homegrown berries is understandable.

Without Louisiana strawberries for this corncake, I picked the ripest, reddest and juiciest berries available in Chicago, which did not disappoint.

Once I was comfortable with the component recipes, I grappled with how to artistically present this Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream. I don’t know how Chef White served the dessert at the City Park dinner, but since the tradition of creole cream cheese was preserved in home kitchens, I reasoned that this is not a fancy but a rustic, family dessert quickly assembled just before serving.

This Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream is a study in contrasts: firm yet tender, moist yet dry, sweet yet tart. The golden crumb of the corncake makes a good foundation for this unstructured strawberry shortcake. The sugared and liquored strawberries add the taste of spring. The labneh and cream filling, sweetened with the caramelized flavor of Steen’s Cane Syrup, is rich and heavenly, but a bowl of whipped cream, in keeping with the Louisiana tradition of enjoying whipped cream with creole cream cheese, should be served for those who want to enhance this already indulgent dessert. This Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream brings a lovely finale to a spring dinner and is a perfect reward for surviving a year of lockdowns.

Strawberry Corncake with Labneh and Cream

For the corncake:
Unsalted butter plus 3 tablespoons of fine cornmeal for preparing cake pan
1¼ cups (160 g) sifted all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons (67 g) fine yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (201 g) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
½ cup (118 ml) whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For making labneh:
35 ounces (1000g) whole milk Greek yogurt
½ teaspoon salt
Equipment: colander, cheesecloth (or muslin or tightly woven tea towel), cotton string

For the labneh and cream filling:
2 cups (450 g) labneh
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 cup (240 ml) heavy whipping cream (extra ¼ cup may be needed if labneh is very dry)
1½-2 tablespoons Steen’s Cane Syrup|2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

For the strawberry filling:
2 baskets (1 pint each, 714 g) strawberries
2 teaspoons sugar, more to taste
2 tablespoons Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Preparing corncake: Preheat oven to 350˚F (180˚C). Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 x13-inch ( 23 x 33 cm) sheet pan with 1¼ inch (3 cm) rim, lining bottom with parchment, then buttering again, dusting with cornmeal and shaking out excess.

In a bowl, whisk together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.

In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy, gradually adding sugar, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add lemon zest.

Combine milk and vanilla extract. With mixer on low speed, add dry ingredients in three batches, alternating with milk. Beat just until blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times. Spread batter evenly in the prepared pan. Tap pan on the counter to settle the batter, eliminating bubbles.

Bake until the top is golden brown and firm to the touch, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes. Invert the cake onto a rack, remove parchment, then reinvert the cake back into the pan. Cool to room temperature. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap until ready to use. (Corncake can be baked a day in advance, wrapped tightly and left on the counter overnight.)

Making labneh: Empty yogurt into a large bowl. Sprinkle with salt and mix with a spatula to combine thoroughly.

Yogurt and salt

Line a colander with double-thickness cheesecloth. Place colander over a large bowl so that the bottom of the colander is raised from the bowl bottom leaving several inches for whey drainage. Pour yogurt mixture onto the cheesecloth. Gather cheesecloth up around the yogurt and tie into a pouch with string. Hang the pouch over the colander for a few hours to speed up the draining. Then place the pouch in the colander, cover with a plate and a heavyweight and refrigerate.

Drained yogurt

Labneh becomes drier the longer the yogurt drains. Two to three hours is enough for this labneh filling. After the allotted time passes, remove bowl and colander from the refrigerator. Untie pouch. Labneh is ready to use. (Leftover labneh can be flavored with herbs and garlic and used as a spread for crackers.)

Preparing labneh and cream filling: Using a mixer with a whisk attachment in a large bowl, beat 2 cups labneh with lemon juice until soft. Add heavy cream and beat, slow at first and then increasing speed until thickened. Add Steen’s Cane Syrup and sugar and continue beating until the filling is soft yet velvety. Cover filling with plastic wrap and set aside until ready to assemble corncakes or refrigerate overnight. Bring filling to room temperature before assembling.

Labneh filling with Steen’s Cane Syrup, sugar and cream

Preparing strawberries: Wash and hull the strawberries. Dice the strawberries on a cookie sheet to preserve the juices. Then transfer berries and juices to a bowl, adding sugar and orange liquor, to macerate for an hour or so until the berries release more juice. Cover and chill until ready to use.

Assembling shortcakes: Cut corncake sheet into round biscuit-like individual serving disks or squares. (Making one big, one-layer shortcake for a crowd would work as well.)

When ready to serve, place a one corncake disk, or split a disk and put the bottom on a serving plate, then cover with a layer of strawberries followed by a dollop of the labneh, top with another disk or top half of a split disk, followed by another spoon of strawberries, labneh and a whole strawberry to finish with a sprig of sweet mint. Serve immediately.

Serves 6-8