SMF

I baked a pan of this cornbread for dinner tonight. It is so good, I thought I would share.

1 !/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups cornmeal ( I prefer yellow vs white meal)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup melted butter

Beat together the first 5 ingredients. ( Just a spoon, you don't need a mixer.) Stir in the cornmeal and flour. Add melted butter and mix. Pour batter into an 8X8 greased pan. Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.

This is so much better than the packaged cornbread mixes. Its an easy recipe and you will really like it! Not diet food but once in a while.

I'm avoiding carbs, but I love cornbread!

- Murray

Basil, thanks for sharing the recipe. Looks very good. I can do this, all I've got to do is get the cornmeal and some buttermilk. I'll serve it with some really good beans and maybe some ham.

Gary, its the best recipe I have found. Simple but very good. I hope you will enjoy it. Perfect with a pot of beans!

I like that it uses mostly cornmeal.

I use white cornmeal rather than yellow. The women in my family were equally divided on that subject and I had ample opportunities to compare the two styles.

I grind my own corn. I wouldn't even know where to get white corn for grinding.

Squire wrote:I use white cornmeal rather than yellow. The women in my family were equally divided on that subject and I had ample opportunities to compare the two styles.

Is the flavor different or is a visual thing? I guess I just think cornbread should be yellow.

Ok, now you've got me curious. Next time at the grocery store I'm going to be looking to see how many different colors of corn/cornmeal there are. Blue - white - yellow - others?
I'd like to make one batch of cornbread of each color to compare, especially blue.

Gary, as far as I know, yellow, white and blue cover the spectrum. Maybe there are more but I don't know of them. The blue meal would be interesting.

I'll echo Brian: I like that it's mostly cornmeal, too. (It's like oatmeal cookies that have more wheat flour in them than oatmeal.)

I, too, would be curious to hear about Gary's experiment with corn of different colors - especially the blue variety in corn bread.

- Murray

PS. I shouldn't be hanging out on this thread! I might note that I have a friend who makes the best cornbread from scratch in a cast iron skillet. I especially like the part that was in contact with the cast iron.

CMur12 wrote:...the best cornbread from scratch in a cast iron skillet. I especially like the part that was in contact with the cast iron.

That's how my family made it. I agree the best part was the edges that touched the cast iron.

Now I will have to see about making Basil's recipe in a cast iron skillet.

Thank you for the recipe and getting me to crave cornbread now.

Cast iron is great for cornbread but Justin Wilson, the humorist and well known cajun chef once said "pie are round, cornbread are square."

I wonder how many remember or know of Justin Wilson. He was also a composer of music." I guarantee!", at least I think that was Justin Wilson.

I'm curious as to how you make out in your cornmeal search and cornbread results also Gary. I know that on our shelves in Maine there's nothing more than yellow cornmeal to be found, Quaker Oats brand at that and who knows how long the box has been waiting to be bought? It doesn't contain everything because there are parts in the germ that will go rancid (the good stuff), that's why I grind my own. I can also make it more flourlike for a different crumb and better taste. Maybe a health food store or Co-Op would have others.

This thread has me wanting cornbread for breakfast. With real maple syrup and butter it's as good as pancakes.

Yesterday I told my wife I'm going to make some Really Good Cornbread and serve it with a giant pot of beans loaded with an ample amount of some delicious ham. She says she's been wanting some good cornbread and beans for quite a while. I think this would make a good meal for the whole family, preferably to be scheduled to coincide with one of the many upcoming winter sporting events that occur at this time of the year.

[quote="pausted" Is the flavor different or is a visual thing? I guess I just think cornbread should be yellow. [/quote]

Yes, the flavors are different. An easy way to compare them is buy a bag of frozen yellow corn and a bag of white Shoepeg corn, cook according to directions and taste side by side.

Thanks, Squire. Next time I'm at the store I'll buy a bag of white corn meal and make a batch of cornbread. I'll be looking forward to trying it.

A further division between the white vs yellow styles is those members of my family who used yellow always included sugar in the recipe whereas those who favored white never used any sweetener.

That's an interesting difference, Squire. Is it because white corn meal is naturally sweeter or do they prefer corn bread from white corn in purely savory form?

- Murray

Murray white corn meal is less sweet and makes a cornbread that is more like bread. Yellow corn is sweeter and far more oily which produces a heavier, corny flavor. I suspect the addition of sugar in yellow cornbread recipes is to offset the stronger taste of yellow corn.

Back in the 1870s pioneering Bourbon distillers like Col. E.H. Taylor (Old Taylor brand) used white corn because it made a lighter, less sweet, more refined whisky. It also costs more to produce which is why that practice fell by the wayside.

Agronomists at our State University tell me that today white corn is grown almost almost exclusively for table use whereas yellow corn is grown primarily for commercial purposes. Specifically for the production of corn oil, high fructose corn syrup, livestock feed and distilling.

My late grandmother would've simply said, "white meal is for cornbread and yellow meal is for corn cake".