In the US cornbroad seems to be a very regional thing, in some places it is practically unheard of (or at least uneaten) and some places are very particular about their recipes. It has been my experience that cornbread becomes sweeter and lighter (in texture not color) the further North you go, but that might just be my perception.
If I was advising someone who had never had any experience with it I would suggest the above recipe for starters, then a batch with more sugar to decide if you like it sweet or not; then once you have established a good baseline you can start adding things or tweaking to your liking until you get the “perfect” cornbread for your tastes.
I have a Le Creuset skillet that I keep solely for making cornbread. That’s enamel over cast iron.
Instead of heating the skillet in the oven as in MitzeKatze’s recipe, I put it on the stove top and melt the butter in the pan, making sure the sides of the pan get coated too. And I get the pan good and hot. The little bit of butter left in the pan really makes for a good crust.
This. I also lightly brown a handful of corn meal in the butter, then pour the batter in on top. Makes for a delicious crust.
Oh, and put me in the “No sugar in cornbread” camp. But tastes vary of course. Eat your cornbread with some beans or stew. Let the cornbread soak up some juice. Cornbread with bean juice just works so well. I prefer pinto beans (cooked with a little salt pork), but again, tastes vary.
I am so making a pot of beans this week! Predicted rain through Friday, so this is a week for hunkering down and making comfort food. Beans and cornbread fits the bill.
Thanks for that - it sounds good and I’ll give it a try one night this week. I only have an 8 inch skillet and the above recipe sounds like it might be a bit big for it - what do you reckon?
Looks to me like half that recipe would work for an 8" round. (I use one cup of cornmeal for making cornbread in my 8" skillet.)
I’m sure that recipe is tasty, but it sounds a bit cake-y for my taste. (Flour? Sugar?)
My recipe is very simple: 1 cup of corn meal, some baking powder, one egg, a little salt, and enough buttermilk to make the mix just sloppy enough to pour readily from the mixing bowl into the skillet.
Oh, and like Johnny L.A. I actually am more apt to use (a generous amount of) Crisco shortening than butter.
Taste is one thing, many people do not like sweet cornbread, but sugar (a little) affects the texture as well. Cornbread made without any sugar at all tends to be drier, crumblier and does not store well (becoming rock-like in a matter of hours in my experience). Just a tablespoon or so does not drastically sweeten the cornbread (and in fact I am southern and eschew sweet cornbread most of the time) but does immensely improve the final product.
Personal tastes however are the overriding factor in any food. If you are happy with sugarless cornbread and like the texture and flavor then there is no reason to change it. But if you think it could stand a bit of a change before it is “perfect” to you, then I would highly recommend adding a bit of sugar. I am sure it is some sort of chemical reaction that I don’t fully understand, but it really improves the final product, in my opinion.
Well, I made my first cornbread last night - I used the recipe in this thread.
I halved the recipe, thinking it would be too big for my pan, but as it turned out, the full amount would have been about right - so my cornbread was only about three quarters of an inch thick, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.
I was quite surprised at the light and fluffy texture - I was half expecting something heavier. I used a mixture of rendered bacon fat and some saved fat from frying sausages - it was really tasty.
My yellow cornmeal is described as ‘medium’ (referring to the grind) - intended chiefly for making polenta - as a result of this, the texture of the finished product was infused with little crispy grains, which wasn’t unpleasant, but I do wonder if this was supposed to be so.
On the whole, I found it very enjoyable - I ate it with fried bacon and baked beans.
Yep. The slightly gritty texture is what you want in a Texas-style cornbread. Glad you liked it. There is something about cornbread and beans that is magic.
