Crow's Cornbread Recipe

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