Sometimes it's tough to find good cornbread, at least in the north east. You either get something that's awesome, or something that's crap. Well, when one of my coworkers sent me a recipe for his 'Cowboy Cornbread' I knew I had to give it a shot. Thankfully, the results were awesome.
Ingredients
- Sugar (1 cup)
- Eggs (2, large)
- Butter (3 tablespoons)
- Sea Salt (2 teaspoons)
- Baking Soda (1/2 teaspoon)
- Baking Powder (2 teaspoons)
- Whole Milk (2 cups)
- All Purpose Flower (1.5 cups)
- White or Yellow Cornmeal (3 cups)
- Leaf Lard/Bacon Fat (3 tablespoons)
You can directly substitute butter if you don't have lard of bacon fat on hand. Keith also says that he sometimes adds poppy seeds to the dry team or vanilla extract to the wet team. I haven't tried this yet. Jim says that adding jalapenos to the batter could be awesome. I made the recipe in a #8 (10" diameter) Griswold cast iron skillet. You can certainly make it in something else... but it won't be as good.
The first thing you need to do is to set your oven at 375 degrees. Put your skillet in the oven. You want it to get hot.
Now, start assembling the batter. You're going to have two teams (apologies to Alton Brown) -- the dry team and the wet team. Sugar, which is often considered to be a wet ingredient, is not so in this case -- it's part of the dry team.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal (3 cups), flour (1.5 cups), sea salt (2 tsp), baking powder (1/2 tsp), and sugar (1 cup). Mix it together. In a separate bowl, mix together the milk (2 cups), eggs (2, large) and whisk until its blended. Melt 4 tablespoons of butter (or two of butter and 2 of lard) (microwave!) and blend it into the wet mixture.
Now, it is time to get the skillet ready for the batter. Get your oven mitts on and get that hot skillet out of the oven. You'll need to grease the skillet while it's hot, so be careful. Use 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter or fat to coat the skillet -- including the sides. I used a butter knife to do so -- kind of like the handle to a butter magic wand. Be careful!
Once your skillet is greased, pour the batter in. Excess butter is going to seep up and bubble through the batter. This is not a bad thing. Now, get that corn bread into your oven! 375 for 40 minutes, but start checking it after 32. Use a skewer or chopstick to check for doneness. You'll know that the cornbread is ready when the edges are very brown, almost black, and when the skewer comes out clean.
Now enjoy your cornbread! Look how delicious it is:
