Thursdays Are For Cooking….
Lodge Cast Iron Griddle
This time, it’s buttermilk cornbread, done the classic Southern way.
Classic Southern Buttermilk Cornbread
Written by Diana Rattray
Published on The Spruce Eats
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 22 mins
Total: 32 mins
Servings: 6 to 8 servings
Link to online recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/classic-southern-buttermilk-cornbread-3054140
Cornbread differs in flavor and texture depending on what part of the country you are in. Southern cornbread is unsweetened and more crumbly than the sweet cake-like recipes from the North; it’s also cooked in a very hot cast-iron skillet, while Northern cornbread is typically made in a baking dish. This cornbread recipe is for the classic buttermilk cornbread you’ll find throughout the South. There’s generally no sugar added to Southern cornbread, which makes it an ideal side dish for a savory meal. Serve it fresh from the oven, cut into wedges, with beans or collard greens or a big bowl of chili. It can also be used to make a delicious cornbread stuffing. If you want to go “old school,” crumble some of this cornbread into a mug and enjoy it with a few splashes of buttermilk.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup melted shortening, divided
- 2 cups white or yellow cornmeal
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- Butter, for serving, optional
Steps to Make It
- Gather the ingredients.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F. Position the rack in the center of the oven.
- Brush about 1 tablespoon of melted shortening in a 9- to 10-inch cast-iron skillet and put the skillet in the oven.
- In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg, and the remaining 3 tablespoons of melted shortening.
- Add the buttermilk mixture to the dry mixture and stir just until blended. Carefully remove the hot cast iron pan from the oven and set it on a metal rack. Pour the batter into the sizzling shortening in the hot skillet.
- Return the skillet to the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 375 F, and bake for 20 to 24 minutes, until golden brown.
- Cut the cornbread into wedges and serve hot with a pat of butter, if desired.
Why would any sane person not serve fresh, hot cornbread with butter????
I wonder how well this will work out being baked in an enameled cast iron skillet?
Nothing to do about it but give it a whirl and report back later……….
(how much later? Don’t know. I’ll get back to you later on when “later” is)
Gun Bunny in 5, 4, 3….
*grin*
Good recipe, Ex- I made the mistake of posting one that included sugar and promptly had my face shot off.
This one is really good. Really, really good.
I mean really MELTING BUTTER good….
Honey Hush! Put some South in yore mouth! This is what I been preaching/testifying about since the Thursday are for cooking FIRST (ht 2 Sapper3307) started. Genuine, cast iron skillet baked Southern Cornbread. The kind you use to make dressing with. And NO SUGAR, it’s cornbread, not Birthday Cake. The icing that goes on this is pure salted butter. Y’all may recall I posted earlier about Baby Sister coming and cooking up a Birthday Buffet for the Old Gunny Bunny. It included this skillet of Southern Cornbread. DaHell is ninja, she’s gonna wanna slab of this. Maybe AW1Ed can find and post that picture I sent him of the finished product. If I post the one that’s in this computer the link goes to ALL of my pictures. They won’t do. If the Adorable Deplorables (or the hot wives) was to see what a total package the Gun Bunny is, it would either start a riot or wreck a few homes…or both. And yes, I can and do this dish on a right regular basis. So does my Baby Girl.
Pro tip…Use ONLY White Lily or Dixie Lily white cornmeal. Not a RAAAYYYCIIISSS thing, it is just the best. Yellow cornmeal is best for breading up fish. Not only a difference in the texture of the finished product, but also in the taste.
Pass me the butter, that pot of greens and them butter peas.
Tanks Ex!
Pic as requested.
AW1
My main man. More proof that he loves us and wants us to be hungry…oops, I mean happy.
This pic is actually of the cornbread dressing, but y’all get the idea. And yes, that skillet is as big, if not bigger, than it appears, and NO, it is not for sale. It is well over 125 years old.
And the pic might be upside down???
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Sugar or no sugar in cornbread is mostly based on what you grew up with, not whether it is “Southern” or not.
There are recorded pre-Civil War recipes of cornbread with sugar and without. (And there is a racial component to sugar / no sugar debate as well.)
However, if you want to say that “this is the recipe that my great great great grandmother used before Sherman was marching to Atlanta, you may be correct on the time when the recipe was written, but not the ingredients.
Up until the turn of the century, corn meal (don’t get me started on white vs yellow corn meal) was ground later in the growing season than today. More time on the stalk meant the corn itself was sweeter when milled.
That means that your ancestors upon whose recipes you are relying used a sweeter corn meal. Therefore, if you want to recreate the cornbread your ancestor was making, you have to add sugar. Many restaurants at historical sites recognize this and adjust with a teaspoon of sugar or less.
The bottom line is cook what you like. If your grandmother didn’t add sugar and you like it that way, then make it that way. But don’t – just don’t – try to say that a version of cornbread without sugar is any more “Southern” than one that adds sugar (and vice versa.)
Culinary history simply does not support that.