Favorite Cornbread

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Veronica

With three different cornbread recipes on my blog already, you might think I was cornbread crazed since I’m adding another. Well, I guess maybe I am. Growing up, we practically lived off of beans and cornbread during the winter months. Plain pinto beans with no spices save salt, and whole wheat cornbread that was dry, not sweet at all, and was perfect for absorbing copious amounts of salty butter. It might not sound particularly tasty, but we loved it. I think it was the magic of butter, which we surprisingly were allowed to consume without limits since Grandpa deemed it a healthy fat and Mom learned all her health-nut ways from him. So we loved our beans and butter, er, cornbread.

This cornbread is the antithesis of the cornbread I was raised on, and truth be told, the first time I made it I was completely aghast that Mel dared to call it cornbread. This wasn’t cornbread, this was cake. And her whipped honey butter? The frosting!

But everyone (I brought it for a chili day at work) loooved it. I didn’t bring the honey butter the first year and at first, some were disappointed, but after tasting it said, “This doesn’t even need butter!” It really doesn’t. It practically melts in your mouth, it is so soft and moist. I noticed when I brought the honey butter last year they barely touched it. The cornbread is perfect on its own but if you really think you need some sweet butter, go to Mel’s blog for her unique recipe, which includes marshmallow fluff and is very good.

Anyway, after making this for others for two years and taking little tastes, I finally made it just for us for the first time last week when the temps were cooler and I wanted something to go with some ham & bean soup. I have to say, I’m a convert. Sorry, Mom. This is definitely my new favorite and I have to tell you, Dennis is gaga for this stuff and he would never eat any of my cornbread before, not even Jiffy mix, which is similar to this, just not as soft. The Lighter Northern Cornbread recipe on my blog is also crazy good, but it’s lower in fat and sugar so it’s not quite as melt-in-your mouth. If you’re looking for some full fat goodness, I gotcha covered.

Favorite Cornbread

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 ½ cups (6 ¼ oz) all-purpose flour
½ cup (3 oz) corn meal
2/3 cup (5 oz) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 ¼ cups milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray an 8×8 baking dish with oil; set aside. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, make a well and add oil, butter, eggs, and milk into the center. Stir well until mixed (batter will be runny – don’t be alarmed!). Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes. This doubles perfectly for a 9X13-inch pan, but will have to be baked longer (start checking after 45 minutes-I can’t remember how long it took when I doubled it in previous years).

Recipe source: Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

25 Comments

Posted in Bread and tagged baking, best, cornbread, light, melt-in-your-mouth, moist, northern, sweet, tender, winter. Bookmark the permalink.

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Veronica

Happy Monday, my Cornicopi-cats! :) Today I was just going to share my basic recipe for buttermilk biscuits, but I figured you can’t have biscuits without sausage gravy. OK, so you can, you can have them plain, with butter, with jam, with honey, but once in a while you gotta get your sausage gravy on. Is it a custom where you live to eat biscuits smothered in sausage or country gravy? If not, you must try it, at least once. This is straight up comfort food for me.

I make my biscuits two ways, depending on how much time I want to spend on them. The first way includes a little bit of folding the dough over and then cutting into rounds. This yields a taller, layered biscuit. The second way is just dropping the dough onto a baking sheet, then patting it into place with floured hands. Either way, they are soft and so tender–some seriously good eatin’.

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits

Makes 8-10 biscuits
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
¾ cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment.

Measure the dry ingredients into a food processor or bowl and pulse once to combine. Pulse or cut in the butter and shortening until fats are the size of peas. Dump the contents into a bowl and stir in the buttermilk until dough is moistened. You can pulse to combine in the food processor, but it is too easy to overwork the dough so I like to stir it in by hand. At this point you can either 1) drop the dough in mounds the size of your choice onto prepared baking sheet. With floured hands, pat the tops and sides of the dough until they take on more of a shaped appearance.

Or 2) dump dough onto a floured surface and lightly flour the top. Knead a few times (careful, don’t knead more than ten turns) and roll out to 1” thick. Using a 2 ½” biscuit cutter or glass, cut out rounds going straight up and down without twisting the cutter, place on baking sheet, and brush tops with beaten egg if desired (this will make the tops golden but doesn’t change the flavor). Bake for 10-12 minutes. Serve warm with butter, jelly, or…

Suzie’s Sausage Gravy

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 lb. good quality sausage roll, like Bob Evans
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
salt and black pepper to taste
Prepared biscuits

Crumble and cook sausage in large skillet over medium heat until browned. Stir in flour until dissolved. Gradually stir in milk. Cook gravy until thick and bubbly. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot over biscuits. Refrigerate leftovers.