You know you are a cornbread fanatic when.....

These 3 events happen within a span of a week.

Sidecar Bar is my new favorite place in Philly. Because of this:



One of my favorite place to get cornbread is Whole Foods. They sell slabs out that you pay for by weight. While in NYC, I might have worked above a Whole Food and bought these on a daily basis. BUT to this day I have never had such a thrill as this:



Cranberry Cornbread!?!?!?!?! It's amazing! And only Philly is so lucky to have it!!!

I got home after Thanksgiving weekend and well whipped this up:

Iron Skillet to add to my Cornbread tools

So my family really likes to feed my cornbread obsession. For my birthday my mom got me an Iron Skillet. I finally cooked my first batch in it. It came out amazing! And I didn't use creamed corn. I actually used the first recipe I ever tried....back in college with Devin. This was the attempt that came out horrible and was thrown out. It still perplexes me what went wrong. I really feel like the baking powder had gone bad maybe.

Well my mom used this recipe and said it came out great, so I nervously gave it a whirl myself. It is a simple recipe. It is made with only a small amount of sugar. I added a little extra, but didn't go crazy and I still like it. 

Here's the recipe:

Skillet Cornbread
 

Ingredients:

1 cup flour

¾ cup cornmeal

3 heaping tablespoons sugar

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon butter

2 eggs beaten

1 cup milk

¼ vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400F. I

2. In a medium bowl stir together flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

3. Add the 1 tablespoon butter to a 10-inch cast-iron skillet. Place in the preheated oven about 3 minutes or until butter melts.

4. Remove pan from oven; swirl butter in pan to coat bottom and sides of pan.

5. Meanwhile, in a small bowl combine eggs, milk, and oil.

6. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened.

7. Pour batter into hot skillet or pan.

8. Bake for about 15 minutes.

(Recipe Courtesy of Better Homes and Garden Cookbook)

On the hunt for a moist cornbread........

I love cornbread.

I think it is a national known fact. I used to buy squares from Whole Foods on a daily basis when I worked above one. I have made it from scratch a million times. Each time I was left just mediocrely happy. That isn't a word, I know, but it fits here.

Well on Thanksgiving I made an announcement to my family that I would no longer be trying to make cornbread from scratch because my roommate made a batch from a box and it was to die for and super moist. I vowed I would just stick to boxes from now on.

Then Christmas happened and I got this:

So I am back in the kitchen trying again.

This was the biggest success yet, so I guess Crescent Dragonwagon knows her stuff. (The author of the book with the weirdest name on the planet.) Her book is kind of an overload of cornbread information. As if I wasn't already overwhelmed with the abundance of variation of recipes online, now I have a whole book of them. So for my first go at one of her recipes, I actually altered it and didn't stick to the plan.....She has a whole chapter on Southern Cornbread and another on Northern Cornbread. I know Southern always complain about us Northerners, but guess what? I'm from the North, so I like my cornbread sweet.

My pursuit has always been to find a recipe that comes out moist. My new idea was to make one that called for creamed corn. I feel like zucchini bread and carrot cake come out moist and they have a vegetable in them, so having corn in it sounded like it might be the trick. The thing is that I don't like whole kernels of corn in my bread. The recipe didn't call for pureeing the creamed corn, but I would recommend it if you don't want any stray corn in your bread. Creamed corn I think is the trick. After all different combos of butter, oil, cream, milk and not getting a moist result, I found the secret ingredient!

Here is the recipe:

Creamed Corn Cornbread

Ingredients:
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 3/4 cup flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup creamed corn
- 1 cup milk (I used 1%)
- 1 egg

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
2. Put the butter in the pan and put the pan in the oven.
3. Combine the dry ingredients: cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the creamed corn, milk and egg.
5. Combine the dry and wet ingredient. Stir together to combine, but don't over mix it.
6. Remove pan and pour warm butter into the mix.
7. Stir the butter in and then pour the mixture into the hot pan.
8. Lower oven temperature to 400 degrees.
9. Bake for roughly 25 minutes.
Enjoy!

I alway have to try a piece warm, but cornbread taste way better cool or the next day.

Cornbread Mishap

It has been a little while since I've made cornbread. I was on the hunt for awhile to find the best recipe. The hunt is still on, but I have taken probably an 8 month hiatus from attempting. Today I made a batch which called for sour cream to use up this ingredient I would never use otherwise.

The cornbread came out decent (still nothing to write home about) but when taking it out of the pan, I had a huge mishap!




I didn't want to scrape the pan, so I just kind of loosened the sides and then flipped the pan thinking it would slip right out. Not the case. Instead I was left with a pile of cornbread and half still in the pan. This made for awkward slices!

Here is the recipe, although I must say, I will still be trying others. It wasn't super moist, but it wasn't dry. It could use a little more taste though....extra salt? extra sugar?

Ingredients:
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions:
1. Preheat the over to 400 degrees
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the egg, sour cream, milk and butter.
4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.
5. Pour into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until middle is cooked all the way through.