cornbread is a bread right?
My mother clipped a recipe from a newspaper maybe 50+ years ago and i altered it a little.
The original recipe:
1/2 c butter melted
2/3 c sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 t soda
1 c yellow cornmeal
1 c flour
1/2 t salt
Original instructions:
"8x8 greased pan. preheat oven to 375 for steel pan 350 for glass.
Combine butter and sugar and stir well. Add eggs and beat until well blended.
Combine buttermilk and soda and stir into above.
Add and stir until just blended, cornmeal, flour, and salt.
Bake for 30 minutes."
I prefer to reduce the sugar to 1/2c and increase the salt to 1t.
I use softened but not melted butter and use the creaming method.
I can't be bothered to buy buttermilk so i buy the add-water dehydrated buttermilk and mix it with the half-n-half i buy for my coffee, or in this case, with the evaporated milk left over from making pie earlier this week.
I add the buttermilk (or components thereof) to the creamed sugar/butter/egg mixture as well as the salt because why not, and then add the corn meal. Who adds soda to buttermilk? heresy.
I prefer to let the corn meal hydrate in the bowl for 10-30 minutes. I have on occasion, when i needed fresh cornbread early in the morning, put this mixture in a container in the fridge overnight with no ill effect.
Then i sift together the soda and AP flour, and mix that with the rest until just combined before putting it in the pan. An 11x7 this time as it turns out.
The temperature recommendation based on pan material looks maybe backwards? 375 works but check it at 25 minutes because it may be done.
I find that my version is not as dense as what i grew up with. (Edit: but to be sure it is dense, and moist, and a little sweet)
