There’s a great divide between northern and southern versions of cornbread. The former uses sugar whereas what’s termed “real cornbread” in the south, sugar is verboten. I favor southern style cornbread compared to the more cake-like versions up north. The kind of cornmeal you use adds further distinction. Before our kitchens became so artisan-minded, an ingredient like Quaker Oats cornmeal in the familiar yellow container was all that was available until the notion of stone ground, coarse or medium fine became a choice as in Bob’s Red Mill brand or the Anson Mills heirloom corn meal.
I get my cornmeal in 5-pound bags from the southern granary, Boonville Flour and Feed, a wonderfully old-fashioned mill who also makes the best all-purpose flour. Southern flour is called soft winter wheat, favored by southern bakers for pastry, cakes, biscuits, cookies and the like. White Lily has always been the standard, though some purists now prefer flour from small mills. (White Lily is now owned by Smuckers.)
The softness of southern wheat is unmistakable in what it does to biscuits in particular and cakes and pastry dough. It’s a bit of an effort to acquire this flour by mail order but well worth the bother.
Last week I received my order of all-purpose flour from Boonville along with self-rising flour, which I use for biscuits, and their stone-ground white cornmeal. (One has a choice of getting self-rising cornmeal, too.) Ah, there’s another difference between north and south cornmeal practice. White cornmeal is standard in the south, the yellow shunned by cooks below the Mason-Dixon line.
The white does bake up yellowish and has, I think, a finer flavor and texture. Most recipes for cornbread require a cast-iron skillet; I like to preheat the skillet in the oven with some fat melting in it so that when you pour in the batter it sizzles, creating that wonderful outer crispy crust on the finished baked bread.
I haven’t made cornbread in a long while, and last week I had a hankering for it. Looking for a slightly different recipe from the ones that I usually make (which are almost always called “real cornbread” in the various southern books to which I refer ), I turned to the book “Soul,” written by the highly regarded Atlanta chef, Todd Richards, whose book is an exploration of southern cooking beyond the usual collard greens or fried chicken.
So it was with wonder that I read his recipe for cornbread. What stood out was his use of a lot of sugar (one cup) in his cornbread for the full recipe (the one featured here halved the proportions for a smallelr cornbread yield). Almost all southern cooks, professional or otherwise, would shake in horror at the use of sugar in a family’s cornbread recipe.
I tried it (I like sweet as a “seasoning”) and this was one of the best corn breads I’ve had. This cornbread had a dense softness to the crumb and the flavor was enhanced by the sugar and buttermilk.
I changed the recipe slightly because it called for baking in a 12-inch skillet. I didn’t need such a huge serving. I cut the recipe in half and put it into a vintage 8-inch Lodge skillet, naturally seasoned over the years instead of the newer versions, which are pre-seasoned. The bread was slightly thicker than it might have been in the `12-inch skillet. But the texture and flavor were enriched by the high amount of sugar. This was undeniably a savory cornbread, but a heap of strawberries over it would have been just right, too.
Ingredients
- 1 cup plain white cornmeal
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup buttermilk, preferably Kate's
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 large eggs, beaten slightly
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon light olive oil
- 1 to 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Put an 8-inch skillet into the oven to preheat for at least 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl stir together the cornmeal, flour, buttermilk, sugar, melted butter, baking soda, salt and eggs until nicely combined but don't over mix.
- Remove the skillet from the oven and swirl around enough olive oil to lightly coat the pan.
- Pour the batter into the hot skillet
- Bake the cornbread in the oven until golden brown, about 30 to 40 minutes. Top with the softened butter.
Notes
This is adapted from "Soul" by Todd Richards