Buttermilk cornbread

baking 

I like baking, as it can be something that does not involve any computers. Please have this recipe for cornbread, based on buttermilk and baked in a skillet. As for baking goes, this recipe is quite forgiving and you don’t need to watch ratios as closely as with others.

Ingredients

This is for a 20cm (8") skillet, which gives you enough bread for you and one other person to enjoy over a weekend. For a 25cm (10") skillet - double the amounts. It’s best to use a cast iron skillet as it has enough thermal mass to take pouring cold batter into it and still be reasonably hot afterwards. Flour and cornmeal volume measurements are for flour poured into a cup.

1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil
300ml cornmeal
150ml all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
300ml ​​buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons melted butter

Steps

  • Put the veggie oil in the skillet, put the skillet in the oven, preheat to 200C. This takes a while and gives you time to prepare the batter. The oil shouldn’t smoke.
  • Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl, mix well.
  • In another bowl whisk eggs and then melted butter into the buttermilk. No need for any extensive whisking, just to combine well.
  • Make sure your oven came to temp.
  • Pour wet ingredients into the dry, mix well. Acid from the buttermilk will start to react with bases from the baking soda and powder leavening the mixture. Do not overmix and work reasonably quickly, to not lose the bubblage. The resulting batter should be thick, barely pourable.
  • Take the hot skillet out of the oven, make sure the oil is spread evenly.
  • Pour the batter onto the hot skillet, most of it should pour but the last of it you may need to transfer using a spoon. Even out the surface, but don’t be too pedantic about it.
  • Put the skillet back into the oven, reduce heat to 185C
  • Bake for around 20-30 minutes, it does not burn easily, you can put it under a broiler for few minutes at the end if you want more brownage. The time needed does not change as much with the volume.
  • After baking you can keep it in the skillet, or take it out. It does not need to release much moisture, but also should come out pretty easily when fully baked.
baking 

See also