Southern Cornbread Recipe. . .

A TIP!: GMR taught me to get everything measured out and together before I start a recipe, that way you know you have everything you need, and it makes things easier to just prepare the recipe without stopping and searching. This has been the best tip for me!

Be sure to pre-heat your oven. My recipe called for 425, but I set it on 450 because of our elevation and because sometimes I like a higher setting for my cornbread.

I always sift my dry ingredients; and in a separate bowl, or big measuring cup, I beat the eggs and milk together, then add the oil to the liquid. I use less oil than some recipes. The recipe below calls for 1/4 cup, but I use a couple tablespoons instead. I play around with the amount of oil...sometimes I just don't like much oil in it.


One thing I do differently from some recipes is to put more cornmeal than I do flour - I just like the texture better. For example, I'll put only a 1/4 cup of flour and a cup and three quarters of cornmeal to make the two cups needed. You can play around with it. There's been times I've used no flour at all, if I have a finely-ground cornmeal.

I also never use lowfat milk in my cornbread and since that's all I have in the little log house fridge, I add cream or half and half or something like that to the lowfat milk to get more fat in the cornbread. Lowfat or skim milk makes for drier cornbread!

I pre-heat my skillet until it's hot. Then when I pour the mixture in, it creates a 'crust' on the bottom.

Adding whole kernel corn or creamed corn makes for a different texture and taste, but it's gooood eating too.I like plain old cornbread with my beans, so if I add corn to it, I eat that with something else.

When I was growing up and trying to help my mother in the kitchen, there was always this big joke around my house about my cornbread. I just couldn't prepare a decent pan of cornbread--dang it all, what's a southern girl to do if she can't bake a good pan of cornbread? One time, the cornbread was so hard, my brothers took it and banged it against the counter and it didn't break *laughing,* then they took it outside and threw it back and forth, laughing like idiots. The next time, the cornbread looked as if it swam in a sea of grease, and was so soft and disgusting, even my brothers wouldn't touch it. That time, they felt sorry for me and tried to tell me it didn't matter, because I'd busted out crying, caterwauling about how I couldn't make cornbread....poor thang bless her little heart.

Finally, finally, finally! I can make a good pan of cornbread! Good thing, since I looooove cornbread and beans and live too far from my mother to eat hers.

Gumbo Writer has inspired me to think about cooking and recipes again. It's been so long since I cooked for a family. I've been thinking of the days when I worked full time, and would come home to cook for my (then) husband and my son. Now, it's just GMR and me and I work at home. A pan of cornbread goes stale before we can eat it all - so, it's a treat I don't have often. The birds and squirrels get the leftovers, though, and they seem to like cornbread day *grin.*

So, bake up a pan of cornbread and sop it in your beans - yeeee doggies!

Here's a sample recipe - but shoot, you can find cornbread recipes everywhere....just play around with it as I've done until you find the texture and taste you like the best.

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup All Purpose or Unbleached Flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1 egg, slightly beaten