After posting the recipe for a lighter Northern cornbread, I got some feedback I wasn’t expecting. Namely, from readers informing me that cornbread wasn’t made with flour, only cornmeal.
What?
I mean. WHAT?!
How could this possibly be? Mom made her cornbread with whole wheat flour. Every cornbread recipe I’ve ever seen includes flour. Why have I never heard of cornmeal-only cornbread?!
I scoured the internet for a cornmeal-only recipe, and came up empty. I consulted a friend in Kentucky who told me that cornmeal-only cornbread is a Southern thing (and she also told me I had to use buttermilk) so I searched for “Southern cornbread.” Every recipe had flour. So I searched for “buttermilk Southern cornbread.” All had flour. Desperate, I just did a generic “cornbread” search and yielded the same results. The only difference in the vast amount of recipes was the amount of cornmeal and flour, the type of milk used, and whether or not there was sugar added.
I remembered that my cornmeal sack had a cornbread recipe on the back so I consulted that. Score! It was called “Homestead Cornbread” and only called for cornmeal, but it called for regular milk and Carla had specifically told me I had to use buttermilk. She also insisted I top it with real butter. Carla is from the South and she knows what she’s talkin’ ’bout so I decided I’d better come up with my own recipe (and top it with real butter) to make her happy.
You know southern women. They’re all charming and “bless your heart!”…until you try to serve them sweet cornbread with whipped honey butter and then the fangs come out! Or so I imagine, based upon how heated the North & South cornbread debate can get. ;)
*Disclaimer: I apologize to any Southern women reading this. I was totally only saying that to amuse the Northerners. Please don’t bite me!
So I got to work and made us a big ‘ol mess of beans (I’m trying to talk like Paula Deen since I’m doing the whole Southern cornbread thang here), because that’s just what you eat with cornbread (or am I wrong about this too?), and baked up my version of REAL southern cornbread.
Until I made this, I was convinced that the sweetened, moist stuff I’d been making lately was an abomination and I should be ashamed of myself for stooping so low as to make something that you didn’t have to drown in butter to keep from choking down. That’s just how cornbread was supposed to be. Dry and unsweet. But now I can officially say (my apologies to the Southern folks) that I’m a true Northern cornbread convert.
Now, this stuff is wonderful if you do indeed slather it with a generous amount of (real) butter, and even better with some honey (I guess I missed the sweetness), but without them it is a little dry and crumbly. What do you expect? There’s no flour in it! But if you were raised on this kind of cornbread, and are looking for a recipe and discovered them hard to find, I’m going to include it here for you because I realize that folks are loyal (except in my case, apparently) to the foods they were raised on. And this one is especially good for crumbling over your beans, which means you can get your cornbread and beans in every bite! I love that. Oh, oh, oh! This one would also be superb for making cornbread stuffing. Mmmm….is it too early to start planning Thanksgiving dinner?
Homestead Cornbread
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture
2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder (such as Rumford)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs (unbeaten)
2 tablespoons canola oil
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine dry ingredients. Add milk, egg, and oil and mix well. Pour into well-greased 8-inch square pan (the batter will come up high but don’t worry, it doesn’t rise much) and bake for 25-30 minutes. Cut into rows of 4×3 to make 12 squares.
Per serving: 120 calories; 4.2 g fat; 17.4 g carb; 1.5 g fiber; 3.7 g protein
*Veronica’s notes: it’s important to use aluminum-free baking powder in recipes calling for more than a teaspoon, otherwise you will get an unpleasant metallic aftertaste. If I were to make this again, I’d bump up the oil to 1/4 cup to make it a little more moist. To make this with regular milk, use 5 teaspoons of baking powder and omit the baking soda.
Recipe source: adapted from the back of a Shawnee Best yellow cornmeal sack.
Veronica's Cornucopia 
I learned to cook from my first mother-in-law who was born and raised in Brewton Alabama. She made THE best cornbread (and buttermilk biscuits) I have ever tasted. She did use a very little flour in her cornbread but it was like less than half a cup.
I noticed that you said to pour your batter into a well greased pan….if you want authentic southern bread, this is what you do.
Add about 1/4 c bacon grease to a cast iron skillet. Put it in the oven and let it melt and get pretty hot. Take it out carefully and pour the batter in….the melted bacon grease will come up the sides of the skillet and you take a spoon and drizzle that melted grease all over the top of the batter. When this bakes, the top will have a nice crust and so will the bottom. Absolutely the best thing you can eat ham and beans or just with butter and syrup on it!
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Wow, that sounds amazing! Thanks for the tip. :)
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You are cracking me up girl! I don’t know what I like more, your post or the fantastic pics! I make cornbread for our chili, have to admit, like it a bit sweet and with a bit of flour, but the above comment about cooking in the cast iron skillet with bacon grease sounds authentic! Hats off to the Southern girl that resides in you…Happy Cookin!
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Lol! I love the Paula Deen “accent”! ;P This sounds awesome. I too, make cornbread w/ chili. Derek has been bugging me for chili, so it looks like I’ll be making this to go with it. I will though, try the cast iron pan and the bacon grease as Carol suggests…that sounds heavenly!! :)
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Suzie…I made this recipe last night and did it in my old cast iron skillet with about two tablespoons of bacon grease melted in it first. AHHH MAZING!!!
Crisp top and bottom but with a flavor that is out of this world.
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LOVE IT! I will be sure to try it this way next time I make it. I just need to get a cast iron skillet.
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As a Northerner, I am totally amused! Thanks for the hilarious post. =)
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I also make ”southern cornbread” even though i am from the north, and use just cornmeal and the bacon grease in the skillet. It is something i just make don’t use an exact recipe. I just pour some cornmeal in the bowl add a couple eggs a spoon of sugar enough milk to mix and also do the bacon grease thing and have been known to add a drizzle into the batter. It has always turned out good. Now i am going to have to try cornbread with flour. I suppose i will not have a problem finding a good recipe as you say they are everywhere. Thanks for putting it in my mind to think of it in a new way. I always enjoy your post.
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IMHO, this one is the best northern cornbread (and without being boastful, mine is very very good as well): http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2009/08/the-cornbread-and-fluffy-honey-butter.html
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Hilarious!!!!! That piece with the melty butter is calling my name. :)
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Me again. :) To answer your question: I LOVE hummus mixed with balsamic vinegar as a salad dressing. You should try it!!
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Just tried this cornbread last night and it was amazing! Tasted just like my first mother-in-law’s cornbread and I had never eaten any as good until last night. I emailed the recipe to about six people and called my ex sister-in-law to share this. Thank you so much!
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Aw, thank you for letting me know! And thanks for helping the recipe achieve a more authentic quality by making it in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease. I’m def going to do that next time! You are so sweet.
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Your description of Southern women cracks me up! :D
I always make cornbread from the krusteaz mix from the grocery store. :< I'm too lazy to buy cornmeal. My sister has a light and sweet cornbread recipe I posted on my blog for her, and I have received feedback that it is great from readers, but God help me, I can't muster the energy to make it from scratch.
I did once see a recipe for cakey cornbread that was a mash up of two mixes, a (yellow I'm assuming) cake mix and a cornbread mix.
I dunno. I love cornbread. I don't enjoy making it. :) That all being said, this looks delicious, especially with a big slather of butter and honey on top.
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Oh lawsy me….yellow cake mix? I might be having me the vapors! 6th generation Texan here and mom always put a little bit of sugar in her cornbread….I am using this one though. My son’s GF will be here for Tgiving and she is gluten free…and I need cornbread for the corn casserole WITHOUT flour! Love ya girl!
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Thank you for the recipe. I will try this out.
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I couldn’t remember which brand of cornmeal had “my” cornbread recipe on the package, and a google search found yours instead. I was raised on sweet, cake-like cornbread, but married a boy whose mom was a great southern cook. I agree with those who say make it in cast iron, but a real southern cornbread aficionado will own a set of corn-stick pans. These are cast iron, and have wells shaped like ears of corn. The method is the same as for the cast iron pan, but the cornsticks cook for a shorter time since they are smaller. Their crunchy goodness is a completely different taste from the northern cake-style cornbread. My hubby likes molasses or sorghum with cornbread.
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My Dad had one of those pans, but he had it to sell and we never used it. I thought it was so cool! I’m glad you found me on your quest to find the recipe. :)
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Hey Veronica, I just found your blog a couple weeks ago and I love it. This recipe was perfect in helping me create a gluten-free cornbread stuffing. Thanks so much. http://www.smallwalletbigappetite.com/2011/11/gluten-free-cornbread-stuffing.html
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Thank you for the recipe! I lost the one I had copied from my cornmeal bag and figured I could find a hundred on the internet. How wrong I was, yours was the one I was looking for. Of course, I do cook mine in a cast iron skillet with bacon grease instead of oil. Yum!
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Yay, so glad I could help! Yup, I finally got myself a cast iron skillet so that’s how I’ll be making it next time. :)
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Thank you, thank you, thank you for putting this out there for all of us that like simple flour free recipes!
~Peace From Here
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Hi Veronica
I just made your homestead cornbread and it is all we wanted. It is 100% corn, tasty and wonderfully easy to make. I made it in France, so you can see how this recipy travels!
Thanks a lot.
Sylvia
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That is so cool! I’m so glad you enjoyed it and I love that you made it from another country and it still turned out right. Yay! :)
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Made this today, it is fabulous. my only difference is i added one ear of char broiled corn. this is my new receipe for cornbread.
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Wonderful to hear! Thanks for your feedback. The charbroiled corn sounds like a fabulous addition.
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THANK YOU! Exactly the recipe I was searching for! (((HUG)))
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Yay! Happy to help. :)
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Thought you were going towards a recipe that included no cornmeal; cornflour only, which is what I was searching for. Then I realized that is was the opposite. Saved the recipe anyway. Enjoyed the pictures and post!
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Now that’s a new one on me! I have never heard of cornbread using corn flour. I do have some and now I want to try that! I imagine the crumb would be so nice and fine.
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How did the corn flour work? A friend gave me a bag and wanted to try cornbread using the flour instead of cornmeal.
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howdy – I just saw https://www.aspicyperspective.com/perfect-tamale-pie-recipe/ which has a cornbread topping using masa. It doesn’t have eggs, but it does bake up with a muffin-y crumb. hth
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I made mine with melted butter instead of canola oil and I added a tablespoon of sour cream and a little sugar (I just needed a gluten free recipe). Turned out great! Will use this recipe again.
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Forget the processed oils and use the latest (seriously heathy) grass fed pork lard. Along with real butter and VERY fresh olive oil these are the healthiest fats. Note: The latest research shows added sugar is the body fattening ingredient because it upsets our hormones and fools our body into thinking it needs to store fat.
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Thanks for posting your researched version of corn meal only cornbread.
Finding a corn meal only recipe now in 2020 is easier it seems compared to when you searched in 2011. I, and my family, are from Macedonia, a small country in the Balkan (Mountains) area. The country borders northern Greece, western Bulgaria, southern Serbia, and eastern Albania. I was born there and moved to the US when my dad decided to make a go of it here in the US, and we’ve been Americanized Americans since 1970.
Corn meal is used extensively in the old country. We too have a version of the Italian polenta, which is basically a VERY thick grits type dish. In our old country we also make a grits texture corn meal mush, called, Kachamak, pronounce “ka-cha-mahk”. This is typically eaten with vegetable or olive oil, or melted butter, or lard added while cooking to richen it up, and then add crumbled Sirene, which is a white brined cheese that, which is very much like Greek Feta. The way the cheese is aged makes a difference between Greek Feta and Sirene.
A bit of digression about Sirene and Feta cheeses. Sirene is pronounced, “see-reh-neh”, as the E sound is a short sound like in the word “egg”. Sirene is made throughout the Balkan countries including Macedonia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, and Greece. Sirene is also the preferred white brined cheese in Israel. However, in Greece they make their style in much greater quantities than they do Sirene. Greek Feta is a wood barrel aged/fermented white brined cheese. That’s the main difference. Sirene is made from Ewe/sheep milk, or it can be a mixture of ewe/sheep and goat mike, but it should contain about 60% sheep/ewe milk as that milk is richer with more fat compared to goat milk. White brined cheese made from cow’s milk is not truly Sirene nor Feta. Again, the major difference is that Greek style ages the curds in wood barrels where the cheese becomes drier and more crumbly while also taking on some flavors from the wood barrel in which it is aged. Sirene is aged in metal containers and it retains a bit more moisture so that the cheese is creamier in texture, it still can be crumbled, and the flavor is a “fresher” milk flavor as it doesn’t take on any wood flavors, because it is not aged in wood barrels. French style Feta/Sirene is very much like the Balkan version, but it tends to be a bit richer as it is made with greater percentage of ewe/sheep milk or only 100% ewe/sheep milk. All three versions are great, and there are variations within those version, which gives variations different flavors and textures. It’s very much like the great variety of Cheddar cheeses that take on different flavor, texture, and color depending on the regions where the milk is from. Sirene and Feta have very nice differences. Try them all!
Back to the corn meal only bread. A corn meal only bread has been made in Macedonia, and surrounding countries since corn was brought to Europe. Corn meal only bread is made with a yeast starter, just as on does for making flour based bread. Take some water add some sugar or honey, and add the yeast. When the yeast has bloomed, then add water, or a mixture of water and yogurt thinned to a thick milk level. Add corn meal, salt, and melted butter and/or vegetable oil. Mix and pour into a thick baking pan and bake.
There is also a variation of this corn meal only bread where one adds fresh spinach and crumbles in some Sirene or Feta cheese. If you try this variation make sure to adjust the salt you add as Sirene and Feta have a good amount of salt in them as it’s added when they are made.
Eat up!
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My grandmother was Italian and made corn bread only with corn meal. No flour. Lots of eggs.
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