Cornbread for a 10 ½ Inch Skillet, or 12 Muffins
Pre-heat oven to:
425°F (218°C; Gas Mark 7)
Dry ingredients
1 cup/225 grams cornmeal (I use stone-ground, prefer yellow, but white is good, too.)
1 cup/225 grams plain unbleached flour
1 scant tablespoon/ ½ ounce/14 grams baking powder
½ teaspoon/2 ml salt
Wet Ingredients
1 cup/8 fluid ounces/ ½ pint/237 ml milk
1 large egg
¼ cup/2 fluid ounces/60 ml olive oil or light vegetable oil,
(plus an additional same amount for the skillet)
Thoroughly blend the dry ingredients; set aside. Likewise, beat the egg, milk and ¼ cup of the oil together until well mixed, but not frothy.
Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in the wet stuff. Mix just until well blended – no dry lumps visible. Put the skillet into the oven to heat, for about 60 seconds or so, until hot. Pour the other ¼ cup (et cetera) oil into the skillet, swirling it around until the bottom of the skillet is completely covered. Pour in the cornbread batter, place skillet into the hot oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes. Crust should be a lovely medium brown and a toothpick stuck in the center of the cornbread comes out clean. Cut bread into pie-shaped wedges, split open and slather with butter and the jam or jelly of your choice. Of course, if you’re going to smother your wedge with pan gravy, you might want to fore go the butter and jelly – well, the jelly, anyway. (If making muffins, spray the muffin cups with oil, or grease with shortening/lard/bacon-drippings. Reduce cooking time to 18-20 minutes.)
Once you’ve made cornbread a couple of times, you can just look at it and know if it’s done.
Seems a lot of Americans like sweet cornbread, so if you do, too, add a couple of tablespoons/1 ounce/28-30 grams of sugar in with the dry ingredients. I was taught to make cornbread without the sugar, probably because my mother used this recipe for making cornbread stuffing for the turkeys.
A larger diameter skillet will produce a thinner round of bread, with a lot more crispy crust to bread ratio.
If you plan to use buttermilk instead of sweet milk, be sure to add ½ teaspoon baking soda to the dry ingredients, or the bread will be a bit heavy. Leftover cornbread (if there is such a thing at your house) is delicious crumbled into a bowl and covered with cold milk...nothing finer for late night snacking or a quick breakfast in the morning.
(c)2011 M.C. McLemore
17 comments:
How about a Jiffy mix?
I've never used the Jiffy cornbread mix. I have used their cake mix, though. Not bad.
My recipe is identical to yours except I use the buttermilk and add the sugar.
We eat it with minestrone and adore it.
I love minestrone, Maria, and I have a recipe for Italian sausage and bean soup that also goes well with cornbread.
Oh, god...now I'm hungry! I'm going to try your recipe, next time I make cornbread. I'm out of cornmeal (gasp! no, how can that be?!) at the moment, or I'd be in the kitchen right now. Uh, and out of buttermilk, too.
Fantastic! One for my cookery scrapbook!
Let us know how it turns out, Steve, when you make yours. You could add grated cheese and finely diced chili peppers for a Tex-Mex style cornbread, which tastes good with stew.
(Is this how Martha Stewart got started? Trading recipes and offering cooking tips?)
I will be danged again! I was making cornbread just last night. Three eggs. Big splash if buttermilk. Large dollop of olive oil. I added sugar because I had a Californian in the house. Half self-rising flour. Half corn meal. Added flour and meal until it all stirred up about right. Added olive oil to the iron skillet. Dumped in the thick batter. Topped the batter with chunks of butter. Baked it at 400 until it was done.
Served it with turkey and beef chili.
Thank you, Crow!
I've never made cornbread with olive oil and without sugar---sounds like a relative of Italian polenta.
Jiffy mix cornbread is like a dessert.
P.S. When I'm out of buttermilk, I add a splash of vinegar to milk.
Yes, lordy! Gotta watch how you do things when there's a Californian around...HA!
My mama used self-rising flour for her biscuits, which were to die for, Brother Jim. I have to resort to Bisquick and follow the recipe exactly, or I produce hockey pucks. I bet your Mama was a cook like mine - rarely ever had to measure anything, just eyeballed everything, and it came out perfect 99.9% of the time.
My pleasure, Fresca.
I've never tried the vinegar trick, but I know it should work, from 6th grade science class, where we mixed together common household ingredients to see the reactions. I remember vinegar and baking soda very well!
I love cornbread without sugar. I am going to try yours. I have been catching up on posts now that I am back from traveling with my son, who is fighting depression.
I loved the post about the feral cat. What a fine friend a cat can be.
I will use the email address.
Hello, Anne. Best wishes to your son; I understand the battle.
If you want to make your cornbread truly decadent, use about a third to a half cup of melted butter in place of olive oil. I treat myself to that every great once in awhile.
Brilliant.
Every blog should have a recipe corner.
Never had Cornbread but this and the photo in your previous post do tempt me to give it a go.
Wow! Fourteen comments at the drop of a hat. Time for you to turn your blog into a Julia Childs sub-text, assuming you can manage the drunken-sounding voice without actually being drunk.
All this is quantum physics to me but I do like: "Make a well in the dry ingredients..." Images are always best.
John (AWB), cornbread is easy to make and can become habit-forming in a hurry. I hope you will enjoy yours.
Well, BB, you have to consider that half of those comments are my responses, so maybe I should hold off on the JC bit for now. I'm more of a Two Fat Ladies kind of cook, anyway. Jennifer was a better role model for me than Julia, who always intimidated me, except when she flubbed her lines or when she dropped the chicken. Then, I could relate!
Nice car, by the way.
Post a Comment