Thursday 12 December 2013

Necessity or Laziness - the Mother of Invention

It is definitely winter today with a high around -11 C. I felt like cooking soup for dinner and thought it would be nice to have cornbread with it. When I looked in the pantry, I didn't have enough corn meal for my favourite recipe, there were other ingredients missing too but it was too cold (or I was too lazy) to go out again. To make matters worse (or better) I misread the ingredient list. Thank heaven for that! The result was the best cornbread I've ever had. Here's the ingredient list. I am listing the pan as an ingredient because I think it is essential for this.

1 cast iron frying pan (mine is 10" in diameter)
1 c cornmeal
2 c AP flour
3/4 c sugar
5 t baking powder
1 t salt
7 T butter (almost one stick) melted (save the rest for your piece when you're eating it)
1 2/3 c buttermilk
2 eggs

Set the oven temp to 425 F and put the cast iron pan in the oven. Heating it like this will make a nice crust on the bottom.

Whisk the dry ingredients together while melting the butter.

Whisk the eggs and buttermilk together. Add wet to dry mixing with a wooden spoon until just blended. You might be surprised by the thick consistency but relax. Now drizzle the melted butter over the dough and mix with the wooden spoon until just blended in.

Be careful when you take the frying pan out of the oven (make sure it has come to the full 425 before taking it out). Spoon the dough into the pan and smooth it a little to spread it out. Put the pan back in the hot oven for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool about 10 minutes and then run a spatula around the edge to loosen it and invert the pan onto a cutting board. Flip over, cut into wedges and devour. I like mine with a little butter on top and some maple syrup.