Out of the Maize

Oh, cornbread, you little devil! You impossible little thing! I've spent years trying to get you just right. For some reason, it hasn't come so easily for me -- the perfect consistency, the perfect crumb...oh, and it should actually taste amazing, of course. Years and years of dry, sad, pitiful cornbread caused me to almost give up. I eventually discovered an exemplary box of cornbread mix, but I still wanted to make my own. I tried skillet cornbread, corn muffins, loaves, everything. It just was never outstanding. It wasn't, in fact, even ever good. It was tragic.

I'll cut to the chase, though. You know where this is going, don't you You've started drooling, right? You've got your pencil at the ready, anxious to jot down this very clever recipe? Excellent. So, yes, I've come upon the magic cornbread mathematics. I'm no longer lost! I have arrived! And I really want to share it with you.

Disclaimer: this is actually a very short, very simple, very easy recipe, but it looks L-O-N-G because I have made a lot of notes. So don't be turned off by the length. Much of it is just me babbling about specific cornbread ins and outs.

The Cornbread Solution

1/2 C unsalted butter
2/3 C sugar
2 eggs
1 C buttermilk*
1/2 t salt
1 C cornmeal**
1 C flour
1/2 t salt

*I don't really believe in buying buttermilk, unless I am going to use a gigantic quantity of it. My substitution alternative is a tablespoon on white vinegar added to a cup of milk (I wouldn't advise using skim milk here). Just stir it and then let it sit for five minutes or so before you use it in your recipe. It will thicken and sort of curdle -- that's exactly what you want.

**Use the best cornmeal you can find! It will make a difference! I have certainly used plain old Quaker cornmeal many times in this recipe, so don't feel like a total loser if that's all you can find, but try to use something of higher quality. I have been buying this killer stone ground cornmeal by Three Sisters Garden in Kankakee, Illinois -- for all you Chicagoans out there, you can get it at Green City Market or (I think) City Provisions. It's pretty much the most stupendous cornmeal ever.

Here's what you do.
Turn your oven on to 375 degrees.

Grease (with butter, spray, or, mmmm, bacon grease) a round or square 8" or 9" Pyrex pan. (I am so sorry to get all America's Test Kitchen on you here, but I have tried this recipe in a lot of different pans, and this is the kind that has worked best for me. Don't make it in a dark-colored aluminum pan; this will dry it out too much. A cast iron skillet might work, and it might not -- I've had mixed results. The thing that will work is muffin tins, either regular or baby size.)

Melt butter in a deep skillet. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly add eggs and beat with a fork until well blended. 

Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture in pan. 

Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended. Pour into pan.

Bake 20-30 minutes or just until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (I'd suggest starting with 20 minutes and then keeping a VERY close eye on it. Overcooked cornbread is a bad, bad thing.)

Remove from oven and let cool on a rack. Dive in whenever you can't stand it anymore. Dress with salted butter. Eat as much of the cornbread as you can. It will be good tomorrow, but not as good as the day it was made.

A few more notes:

+If you use muffin pans, bake them for WAY less time. My baby muffins were done in 7 or 8 minutes!

+Remember that bacon grease I mentioned at the beginning? Well, you were frying bacon, weren't you? I'd suggest chopping up that bacon and adding it to your cornbread batter. There you go! Now that is a miracle. Oh, and you? You, little cornbread baker, you are a miracle as well.