Skillet-baked cornbread

ander, I just made your cornbread as written, using veg oil as I didn't have bacon fat. I just want to say it is very good and just a little different than what I usually make. The only difference is the ratio of corn meal to flour, now it's time for corn bread and beans.

dixie, have you tried the book Healthy Bread in 5 Minutes a Day?

http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/

They have a section about gluten-free that might be helpful. We've made five of the recipes so far and every one was incredibly delicious. My husband bought ingredients to try some of the gluten-free recipes so we'll be doing so soon. I'll try to remember to let you know how they are

If you prefer the unsweetened cornbread and love the bacon and Must use a skillet----try lining the bottom of the skillet with bacon before you pour your batter in.
It must be done quickly since the skillet is hot and the bacon will start cooking right away. We also add bacon grease to the batter mix.
I guess there is thousands of cornbread recipes out there.


sweet tea- had to comment----I don't eat very many desserts maybe cause I get all
the sugar I need in my sweet tea and coffee. 3 cups sugar in 1 gal sweet tea.

outsideasy wrote:ander, I just made your cornbread as written, using veg oil as I didn't have bacon fat. I just want to say it is very good and just a little different than what I usually make. The only difference is the ratio of corn meal to flour, now it's time for corn bread and beans.

Glad you liked it. I used to make mine with more flour, but I found I preferred it with less. Hubby and I are doing the low-carb thing now, so it will be a while before I have cornbread and beans again. Have a piece for me, please.

Carolyn, as soon as we can add cornbread back to our eating, your recipe is one I will absolutely try. It sounds wonderful. My grandmother used to make cracklin' cornbread. That was some good eating.

Many black folks in the south put sugar in their cornbread. It's a tradition handed down from slavery times. Slave rations often consisted of meal, molasses, and random bits of pig that the ruling classes wouldn't dare eat. Hence, sweet cornbread cooked in bacon fat served with ham hocks or pigs feet and beans/peas (from their gardens).

dizzygardener wrote:Many black folks in the south put sugar in their cornbread. It's a tradition handed down from slavery times. Slave rations often consisted of meal, molasses, and random bits of pig that the ruling classes wouldn't dare eat. Hence, sweet cornbread cooked in bacon fat served with ham hocks or pigs feet and beans/peas (from their gardens).

And dat is some good eatin' too. Mmmmmhmmmm.

dizzygardener wrote:Many black folks in the south put sugar in their cornbread. It's a tradition handed down from slavery times. Slave rations often consisted of meal, molasses, and random bits of pig that the ruling classes wouldn't dare eat. Hence, sweet cornbread cooked in bacon fat served with ham hocks or pigs feet and beans/peas (from their gardens).

We can also thank them for hush puppies, little bits of cornbread thickened and fried to feed the dogs while walking from the kitchen to the main house, which were separated by a breeze way, saying hush puppy as they fed them pieces of this delight! I cannot imagine fried catfish without hush puppies.

kimbertangleknot wrote:

dizzygardener wrote:Many black folks in the south put sugar in their cornbread. It's a tradition handed down from slavery times. Slave rations often consisted of meal, molasses, and random bits of pig that the ruling classes wouldn't dare eat. Hence, sweet cornbread cooked in bacon fat served with ham hocks or pigs feet and beans/peas (from their gardens).

And dat is some good eatin' too. Mmmmmhmmmm.

Tell me about it! I could smell Sunday dinner at grandma's just typing it!

Anyway, my point was that there is a reason some folks (even southerners) put sugar in their cornbread and it has nothing to do with "them darned yanks". Further, it IS cornbread not johnnycake!

Have you tried the "Boston Market Cornbread Muffin" recipe? Ohmygosh it's so good. You need 1 box of Jiffy cornbread mix and 1 box of Jiffy yellow cake mix (the individual boxes you can find in the baking isle). You mix them together, and add the ingredients from both boxes... So. Good.

It's a quick fix for people that don't have the cast iron skillets. It's sweet, soft, and oh so good with a pat of butter (or slab if your me) on it.

kimbertangleknot wrote: It's sweet, soft, and oh so good with a pat of butter (or slab if your me) on it.

now your starting to sound like Paula Deen.
I am a butter eater too really bad. I use so much butter on cornbread that I started slicing the butter long ways instead of little squares at a time.

Finally found my Mamaw's recipe tonight....

1-3/4 Cup Corn Meal
1/4 Cup Flour
2 Eggs
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 tablespoons Cooking Oil
1-1/2 Cups Buttermilk
1 teaspoon (dash) Salt

(Note: My Mamaw didn't use measuring utensils for dry ingredients under about 1/4 cup.... She used her slightly cupped palm and a table knife. I use my palm too (she taught me how to cook.) I have used more conventional measurements here.)

Pre-heat** a well-cured iron skillet sufficient to hold contents and containing just enough "bacon drippings" to form a small "halo" of grease around rim of batter when batter is carefully poured into center of skillet. (An even rim crust is one criteria for rating a pan of cornbread... and thus the cook's skill.) Bake 20 minutes, or until the rim crust is slightly more than "golden brown", and the center section begins to show slight "cracking" or "creasing".

**Pre-heat and cook temperature are highly dependent on individual oven performance. The only way to know the temp is to make many batches in YOUR oven... (It's a whole other discussion as to how you determine the "right" temp.)

My Mamaw and the children and grandchildren she taught to cook were/are all VERY serious about making proper cornbread.

Enjoy!

CarolynPhillips wrote:

kimbertangleknot wrote: It's sweet, soft, and oh so good with a pat of butter (or slab if your me) on it.

now your starting to sound like Paula Deen.
I am a butter eater too really bad. I use so much butter on cornbread that I started slicing the butter long ways instead of little squares at a time.

Oh gosh... I never thought to do that. My hubby's gonna kill me now.. well if the butter doesn't do it first

dizzygardener wrote:Many black folks in the south put sugar in their cornbread. It's a tradition handed down from slavery times. Slave rations often consisted of meal, molasses, and random bits of pig that the ruling classes wouldn't dare eat. Hence, sweet cornbread cooked in bacon fat served with ham hocks or pigs feet and beans/peas (from their gardens).

This is a great bit of history and heritage, dizzygardener. Thank you for sharing it with us. (Could it be that this is why in the north, we tend to eat sweeter cornbread?)

One of my grandmother's, preferred a bit of sugar in her cornbread, and drank buttermilk with it. Her mother's people (I think) hail from Kentucky, some ways back along the line. Sugar was a luxury, so if I remember correctly, adding a bit of sugar to their cornbread was a way of having their favorite bread, but a sweeter version, kinda like having your cake and eating it too.... I got to meet 2 great grandmother's, and oh the memories, I went to spend a few days each summer with my dad's mom, and she would take me to her mother's to spend a day or two, all by myself. I would sleep on the floor on a feather tick, get up to watch great grandpa make his own shaving cream, listen to stories about the great depression. MMMM, I'm getting hungry for some cornbread, better get my stuff out, oh, I prefer it w/o sugar, I'm sweet enough.

Ah yes.... cornbread and buttermilk. I never acquired a taste for the stuff beyond cooking with it, but my Papaw LOVED to eat the left-over cold cornbread (when there was any... ) by crumbling it into a big glass of cold buttermilk. Looked absolutely awful, but he treated it like a dessert.

Mamaw was from a relatively "well-to-do" family of tobacco farmers in Kentucky (Pratt), and Papaw came from South Mississippi... near Columbia.

That's exactly how my grandmother ate it, crumbled in her buttermilk. She had a smile on her face I'll never forget, I could tell it took her back to her childhood, kinda link drinking soda through a Twizzlers with both ends bitten off does for me.

Isn't it neat how our histories are intertwined with all kinds of places and people. I need to take a trip to Illinois and get my hands on some family records.