I’m sure that’s tasty, but i really like a crumbly cornbread made from yellow corn meal.
More eggs and milk help bind a cornbread without wheat flour. Corn flour and corn starch can be used as binders also. For creamier cake use a whole cup of sour cream. I add corn oil to the mix but it’s not very good for greasing the pan. Butter is excellent at that and makes for a nice crust.
I prefer the taste and texture of cracklin cornbread.
There is no law against combining butter and bacon grease (except in New Jersey, I’m told). That way you get the flavor of bacon, and the taste of butter, which can best be described as…I’m having trouble coming up with the proper adjective…ah yes, “buttery!”
Buttery bacon-flavored pan-fried cracklin’ cornbread—it’s the best!
Same here. I heard Jiffy holds something like 90% of the national market here. So for a whole lot of consumers that grew up on Jiffy corn muffin mix, the brand represents the baseline of normality. Cornbread is supposed to be sweet. That’s the breed standard expectation at any rate. Sure, it’s possible to make savory cornbread instead of sweet just like it’s possible to brew beer using quinoa instead of barley, or pizza made with gluten-free crust.
Great recipe for Jiffy cornbread here. A recipe like this give me the idea to use sour cream. Takes 2 boxes of Jiffy mix. I try to keep them in the cabinet and have to use them up every few months before the baking powder goes flat.
Oh, that is a highly contentious, hotly debated statement.
Personally, I (a transplanted Yankee) like my cornbread slightly sweet (a pinch of saccharin, since I’m diabetic). But most born-and-bred Southerners I encounter think I’m a damn, tasteless Yank for liking any sweetness in my cracklin cornbread.
That’s really interesting, and a somewhat different explanation from this one:
TLDR version: the “cornbread has no sugar” tends to be said by White southerners engaged in some gatekeeping. It’s a good idea not to do that.
I was posting that in regards to cornbread without flour in it, but an interesting set of data points about sugar vs no sugar. (Yes, I understand the title of the article linked to is about sugar, but it also addressed the flour situation, which is what my direct response was meant for.) I’m a Yankee and I could care less what you put or don’t in your cornbread.
Or…we grew up with no-sugar cornbread, we like no-sugar cornbread, and we will always make no-sugar corn bread. No gate-keeping involved. My cornbread is pure Texas: savory, crumbly and made in a screaming hot cast iron skillet. Usually with Ortega chilis and some shredded cheese added. Maybe some bacon. Unless I’m having greens. Then it’s just the basic busted up into the pot likker.
I grew up with jiffy corn bread, but now make my own. I find i like a little sugar when i cook it into muffins, but prefer no sugar when i make it in a cast iron skillet as a “loaf”. (Cake? Like pancake?) I use a cast iron mold for muffins, so it cooks pretty similarly, i guess i just have different expectations for a muffin-shaped-like-a-bunny than i do for a slice.
But i really strongly prefer the more pronounced “corn” flavor of yellow cornmeal, and i also prefer the grittier texture of stone-ground. I’m not looking for dessert, even when i make sweeter corn muffins.
Baking soda needs to be combined with an acid, and if it isn’t, it not only won’t work, it’ll taste terrible. Baking powder is a mixture of baking soda with some sort of dry acid, and so doesn’t need anything else.
You’re right, of course. But I think what’s happening, corn meal is pretty dense, it seems to make a noticeable difference in the rise when using buttermilk or some kind of additional acidity.
I haven’t tried sour cream, it works in everything else naturally, so it should be great. I’ve used every sort of dairy or near-dairy when camping. Powdered non-fat milk is OK, but that’s all it will ever be in any recipe probably. Evaporated milk is acceptable. I like half and half too, but I never buy that either.
I think Puzzlegal has it right. Cornbread should have a pronounced corn flavor, with a bit of grittiness, and I like the buttery overtones, a crispy exterior and savory goodness, that pairs so well with other foods. When made just right it does maybe seem to be on the ragged edge of crumbly-ness.
Certainly a little extra acidity (unlike extra base) won’t hurt a dish, and sour cream is a welcome addition to a great many recipes.
(what’s the base equivalent of the word “acidity”, anyway?)
Oops–sorry, I got confused. You’re right.
This is, of course, the only correct answer.
Sure–preferring it sugarless is cool. The sort of gatekeeping I’m talking about, which shows up pretty often in conversations about cornbread, is this sort:
I don’t think people saying it are malicious or racist or anything, but it’s kind of cool to know the origin of the different takes, and on knowing it, not to stake out a “should” position on the subject.
I’ve always seen foodie gatekeeping more as harmless fun than anything else. I guess some people take it seriously, but I don’t get the sense most people really care. I’ll go to my grave saying real chili doesn’t have beans, but I actually don’t care and I eat (and occasionally make) plenty of chili with beans. I just think those sorts of food traditions and arguments are interesting and fun. Maybe not when they have a racist backbone, of course, but otherwise. Like ketchup on hot dogs. Absolutely not. It has no business on a hot dog. Well, except the times it does. It’s just being goofy.
There’s good cornbread with sugar, and good cornbread without sugar. Hardly a hill worth dying on. Nothing wrong with pointing out traditional Southern cooking doesn’t use sugar in cornbread, but also that traditional Southern cooking doesn’t cover all the cooking styles of the American south either. It’s a choice. As mentioned above, ketchup on a hot dog is not just a choice because it’s flat out wrong. You can eat hot dog with ketchup on it if you want, but puppies will die if you do that.
To the extent that my “should” can be taken as proscriptive, it’s only for meeting my standards of what is best. If someone else wants to make their food differently, and I’m not the one eating it, it makes no difference to me. Heck, even if I am the one eating it, and they make it the “wrong” way for my tastes, common courtesy still dictates that I eat it and thank them for it.
Fair enough!
There’s a small aside in The Bear where the gourmet chef in Chicago is strongarmed into catering a rich kid’s birthday party. He’s setting up hotdogs and asks his asshole assistant where the ketchup is. “Ketchup?” the asshole scowls. “Who the hell puts ketchup on a hotdog?”
The chef looks around. “KIDS!” he shouts.
No love for Martha White (hey, Jiffy was mentioned)? I just the MW self-rising cornbread mix with the old recipe (buttermilk and no egg). Buttermilk makes all the difference the world, IMO. I know they have a buttermilk mix, but I use the other. I put butter on it, and nothing in it. I like it cooked various ways, but I cook it smaller batches - 4 muffins for one meal for two people. You may have realized I’m not much of a cook.