Everyone needs a fantastic cornbread recipe. I am very familiar with cornbread, since it is a staple in the south. There are two different kinds- sweet or not-sweet. I don’t have anything against sweet cornbread. But the salty Texas-style cornbread baked in a cast iron skillet with the buttery, crunchy crust? Can’t beat it.
When I first started experimenting with different cornbread recipes the first thing I did was buy a cast iron skillet (is it shameful that I didn’t have one before then? Probably). It’s worth buying a cast iron skillet just for making cornbread. You just can’t get that perfectly crispy crust without one. And fried breakfast potatoes are out-of-this-world delicious when cooked in cast iron. I have a 12-inch skillet, but a 10-inch is big enough for most cooking tasks, and this amount of cornbread batter would fit a 10-inch just fine.
Cornbread
-Ingredients-
1 C. cornmeal 1/2 C. whole wheat flour 1 t. salt 1 T. baking powder 1 C. kefir or buttermilk 1/2 C. milk 1 egg 1/2 t. baking soda 1/4 C. +2 T. butter
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place 1/4 C. butter in cast iron skillet and set in oven until butter melts.
2. Whisk together cornmeal, flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl mix together kefir, milk, egg and baking soda. Add to dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Whisk in melted butter.
4. Place 2 T. butter in skillet and put back in oven. When butter is melted and oven is preheated, pour batter into skillet.
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes until edges are golden brown and crispy.
6. Slice into wedges and serve with (of course) more butter.
Notes: We eat cornbread, rice and beans on a regular basis. There’s usually not much left, but any leftovers reheated in the toaster oven make a great breakfast or snack drizzled with some maple syrup. Mmmmmmm!
Yield: I slice mine into 8 big wedges.
Adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks