Thursdays Are For Cooking!
Well, you poor souls were fussing about cornbread, and I love cornbread with a lot of melty butter dripping off of it. I would always take cornbread over that batter-whipped fake bread that some bakery in town used to pass off as better for you than real kneaded bakery bread. But my dad liked the fresh loaves he had to cut up and the biscuits he could make from scratch and yes, it’s his Better Homes & Gardens 1953 cookbook. You’d think my Mom could have been a really good cook, but nope – it was my Pop!
In searching for a good, made-from-scratch cornbread recipe, I came across this cook’s version of it, so I”m posting it here, with the link to her blog included. I’m guessing about this being something that could be cooked on the stovetop in a cast iron skillet with a glass lid for checking on it, like a Dutch oven, if necessary, and I may just try that. A Lodge cast iron deep skillet with a glass top and a flame diffuser beneath the skillet just might work. And some hardware stores are carrying the flame diffusers now.
So here we go. She includes the cost per ingredient, too, which is a good idea. Please note that she also says you can use butter to coat the inside of the baking pan, for more flavor.
Cornbread from scratch, with the recipe provided by Budget Bites:
https://www.budgetbytes.com/everyday-cornbread/
From the article: Cornbread is a highly underrated side dish. You can whip up this deliciously sweet and moist homemade cornbread recipe with just a few pantry staples, and it makes a perfect side dish for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Serve it slathered with butter at breakfast, crumbled into your soup or chili at lunch, or as a side with your collard greens and pork chops for dinner. It’s inexpensive, comforting, and seriously easy to make! So toss that boxed mix and let me show you how it’s done for real. 😉
Ingredients:
1 cup yellow cornmeal ($0.24)
1 cup all-purpose flour ($0.15)
1/4 cup sugar ($0.20)
4 tsp baking powder ($0.24)
1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
1 cup milk ($0.31)
1 large egg ($0.27)
1/4 cup cooking oil ($0.08)
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 425ºF and coat the inside of a 9-inch pie plate, cast iron skillet, or 8×8 casserole dish with non-stick spray (or butter for more flavor).
In a large bowl, stir together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt until evenly combined.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, and oil.
Pour the bowl of wet ingredients into the bowl of dry ingredients and stir just until everything is moist. Avoid over stirring. It’s okay if there are a few lumps.
Pour the batter into the prepared dish and bake for about 20 minutes, or until the top and edges are golden brown. Cut into 8 pieces and serve. – article
I will add that plenty of butter is always welcome, and butter can be frozen for future use if you find it on sale. Ditto jams and jellies if you don’t make your own: buying ahead and storing things on the shelf in a storage room, in cartons stacked up and plainly labeled, will take a load of worry off of you and yours… because none of know what’s coming down the road.
Well, now I have to go to the store and get fresh cornmeal. And milk, and eggs and well, I’ve got the rest of the stuff. I just haven’t been using dairy as quickly as I have in the past and what I have is some weeks past the date.
😀
For those who like Alton Brown…..
https://youtu.be/FKuXz5gcr_g
And there is also this great video of cornbread pudding (think “bread pudding with cornmeal”) that AB makes blindfolded:
https://youtu.be/_nCSr5Di_WA
With all due respect Mi’Lady, a nod to regional differences, and at the very high risk of starting a Cornbread Flame War…no…No…NO…Hells to the NAW!!!, we DO NOT put sugar in Real Cornbread. Sugar goes in cakes, pies, cookies, and iced tea. Just as Bobby Lee mighta had to surrender, but I didn’t, and just cause Jiffy Mix (NOT real cornbread) sweetens up, or some damyanky (attitude not a geographic origin) Recipe Peddler (with possible collusion with the processed granulated sugar mafia) calls for ruining another Classic Southern Tradition, doesn’t make it right and proper. This is the hill I choose to die on. And it is the most moral and tasty high ground of all. Next thing you know, they’ll be calling for sugar in grits! (shudder/twitch) Gather round girls and boys, it’s story time. Ditch the sugar, the pie pan (we’re NOT making a pie), the casserole dish (we’re NOT making a casserole), and the flour (we’re making cornbread NOT a cake, biskets, or dumplins). Ditch the milk too, get you some real buttermilk. Use a CAST IRON SKILLET ONLY!!!! If you don’t have a cast iron skillet (or several) you are NOT a cook, you’re a food presenter. If a new one is too spendy for you, hit the flea markets, yard or estate sales, you can buy some nice seasoned ones for cheap. The rest of the ingredients are kinda sorta good to go at this station. Lube your cast iron skillet with the bacon drippins and preheat your skillet with the oil called for in the measurements. Pour the hot oil from the preheated skillet into the batter, mix in, then pour the batter into the hot skillet. Helps make the bottom and the sides a little more crispy. You want your cornbread sweet? Butter it up and slather some of that other nectar of the Gods, cane syrup, on it. If you REALLY want to show off your curlinary skilz, thin the batter to a pancake batter consistency, heat up a cast iron griddle and make you some Lacey Anne/Johnny/Hoe Cakes. Oh, and Mi’Lady…m… Read more »
Thanks Ex…Let’s Eat!
Ah! It’s all regional, KoB!
The way you make cornbread is different from that 1953 BH&G recipe, too!
I think it’s a regional thing, and that’s what the difference is, after checking the 1953 BH&G recipe.
But that doesn’t mean your version is wrong, it’s just a regional version, and probably a WHOLE LOT OLDER and more ORIGINAL than the stuff in my old cookbook.
Also, as with the hoecakes/griddle cakes, that’s another regional difference.
Man, I need to get down and busy on this stuff.
Thanks for the tips from your MORE original version, KoB.
I counted 16 flocks of geese taking off at sunrise last week, one after the other, as if they were fighter squadrons heading off into the Great Beyond. Makes me homesick sometimes.
Not a Yankee, but I like cornbread a little sweet. I also like my late friend’s “Mexican Cornbread.” Add some jalapeno and maybe a couple of habenero peppers to the mix. Moist and tasty with a little bite to it. Great with Chili.
And I would never use sugar on grits, nor butter either, just some black pepper.
Now, there you go. If grits have garlic in them, I’m okay with that, but otherwise, I want to put sugar and slightly heated milk on them, like you would with oatmeal.
Grits. Now yer makin’ me hungry. Salt, pepper, butter, grated cheese.
Whoa… Brutally loooong day. On the way out of the office, one of my teamies plunked down a festive paper wrapped tube on my desk and mumbled a tired g’night boss oh and have a great weekend-a reminder to yours truly that I forgot it’s that once a year B-day thing. Upon arriving home and unwrapping said paper-wrapped tube, delightfully I find myself in possession of a very large bottle of Irish gold – Jameson. Of which I am now going to pour into a very large glass(neat), raise said glass southwards and toast our KoB. Crown Royal, uh? My Dad adored that stuff. Cheers Bro.
P.S. more tomorrow after I’ve had some well earned kip. *whew* tax-payers got their monies-worth today..
P.P.S. Uh, is it me or does it smell like CORNBREAD in here..?
With all due disrespect to my Southern Brother KoB, in the GB AO we use a recipe from an Aunt Jemima sack of cornmeal. It uses a wee bit of sugar.
The recipe as printed:
1/4 c vegetable shortening, oil or drippings
1 c Aunt Jemima Enriched Yellow Corn Meal
1 c all-purpose flour
3 to 4 tbsp sugar (optional) {Note: we use 1 tbsp}
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 c milk
1 egg, beaten
Heat oven to 400F
In 8 or 9-inch square baking pan [we use a round pie tin] or 10-inch ovenproof skillet, melt shortening in oven; tilt pan to coat bottom evenly.
Combine dry ingredients.
Add melted shortening, milk, and egg
mix just until blended.
Pour into hot pan
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown or a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Serve with a mess of blackeyes. Butter some pieces to enjoy as well. Use leftovers (I’ve heard they exist) for breakfast: crumble into a bowl, pour milk and sugar to taste and enjoy.
One of the grocery stores I go to sells cornbread both plain and with jalapenos added.
I think it’s both regional and personal preference. I have the Fannie Farmer cookbook. I’ll see what I can find in that.
There is a theory out there that the difference between sugared and no sugar cornbread is the economic background of the recipe.
Slaves, freed slaves, sharecroppers and lower income families did not use sugar in the recipe because sugar was expensive.
Higher income people used sugar because they could afford it.
I agree with Ex PH2 – it is what you like and what you grew up on.
(My dad’s side of the family was no sugar. Mom’s side used sugar. I am therefore a mixed cornbread breed.)
Spot on gc, you’re right as rain. Sugar, and in many cases salt and pepper, was kept under lock and key…and “The Lady of The House” kept the key on her person. Many a time when we were doing the cane grindings, we’d get a sugar rush while the processing was going on. Probably why I keep at least 10 lbs in stock and plenty of candy at all times. That whole deprived childhood I had. It’s readily available and I can afford it.