American recipe
How to make Cornbread
The South, from Native American cooking
A quick bread made with cornmeal, baked in a hot pan (often cast iron) until golden and crusty. It is served warm with butter, next to barbecue, chili, beans or greens.
Ingredients
- 150 g fine or medium cornmeal (polenta also works)
- 125 g plain flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- Half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 300 ml buttermilk
- 60 g butter, melted, plus a little extra for the pan
Method
- Put a 23 to 25 cm cast-iron frying pan or a metal cake tin in the oven and heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan).
- In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
- In another bowl, beat the eggs with the buttermilk and the melted butter.
- Pour the wet mixture into the dry one and stir just until combined. A few lumps are fine.
- Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven with oven gloves, add a knob of butter and swirl it around. Pour in the batter; it should sizzle.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean. Leave for 5 minutes, then cut into wedges and serve warm.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
Native American cooks made breads from corn long before Europeans arrived, and settlers learned the idea from them. Many Southern cooks make it with little or no sugar.
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