Cornbread



The batter will have an egg, equal part flour and cornmeal, sugar, salt, and two parts milk to dry ingredients. 

The corn is popcorn milled to dust in the coffee bean grinder.

In this case the flavorings are pickled jalapeños and cheese. The milk is buttermilk. Those two acidic elements throw off the balance of baking powder. More baking soda is required, so 3/4 teaspoon baking soda to compensate for the additional acidic elements. This reaction will happen immediately when wet ingredients meets dry ingredients so some of bubbling or foaming activity will be lost to stirring and pouring into the pan.

Fat is usually butter, here bacon grease in the batter. 

1 level teaspoon baking powder to create a slightly more cake-like mixture. 

This is the smallest cast-iron pan that I own, Magnalite, actually, but nearly the same thing. The pan is pre-heated, butter tossed in, rolled all around, turned a nutty brown, then the batter poured in. Baking on medium heat is faster than you might imagine. A mere 20 minutes because it is so thin.

The batter sizzles as it hits the pan and cooks as you pour in the batter.



The thing that is so stupid is, I pulled out frozen corn, that is where the idea for cornbread came from, but didn't get to it quickly so put it back in the freezer and forgot about using it when it came time, for additional corn flavor, texture and interest.

3 comments:

vza said...

What is the red stuff in the cornbread? Chopped red pepper?

I added sour cream to my cornbread yesterday. Turned out very moist.
Last week, I tried a batch with a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup. That was tasty, too.

Chip Ahoy said...

Wow. Those additions do sound good.

I don't have sugar so I used brown sugar. I wanted it more sweet.

I'm out of sausage, bacon, pork type of additions. No ground beef around here right now.

Mine foamed up in the bowl before I could chop the chiles and grate cheese. It would have been taller and better had I timed it better. But Southern style really is dense and not sweet.

The orange things are carrot that comes in the jars of pickled jalapeño.

vza said...

I made my own Mexican pickled vegetables last August. Cauliflower, carrots, onions, jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, bay leaf, Mexican oregano, salt, pepper, a bit of sugar, water, vinegar.
Muy good!

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