I was trolling my usual food blog haunts the other day when I stumbled across a post about cast iron pans and cornbread at The Homesick Texan. I realized two things very quickly. One, she has as much dislike for sweet cornbread as I do. Two, I hadn’t made cornbread in quite a while.
For those of you from the northern climbs; In Texoma we make our cornbread for dinner. It’s not a dessert item and therefore has no sugar. (I know she would disagree and say all of Texas, but I’ve been served sweet cornbread more than once since I moved here. and since I’ve never visited Southern Texas, I can’t speak for them.)
I got this recipe directly from The Homesick Texan with only a few modifications, such as spicing the bread up just mildly with picante sauce, which I’ve always found to be a nicer alternative to simply adding jalapeños. For me, it ads a wider range of flavors overall, and I just love the richness.
For the original recipe, look HERE.
My version is as follows:
Jerry’s Texoma Cornbread
Ingredients:
2 cups yellow cornmeal
½ cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg lightly beaten
2 cups whole milk
2 tbsp bacon drippings
6 tbsp chunky picante sauce (Pace, if possible. This is Texoma cornbread!)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450°F.
Put the drippings or oil in a cast iron skillet and place it in the oven for a few minutes until it’s sizzling.
Mix together dry ingredients. Set aside.
Whisk egg and milk. Mix with dry ingredients, mix in picante sauce.
Take cast iron skillet out of oven, pour hot oil into batter and mix.
Pour batter into cast iron skillet, bake in oven for 20 minutes. Cornbread should be brown on top and pulling away from the sides of the skillet.
What I would have done differently had I though of it:
Not a bloody thing. This is simply the best cornbread I’ve ever had in my life. It’s in my permanent recipe collection.
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this looks amazing. i’ve been craving some cornbread!
Jeez. This is right up my alley for tonight. And I completely agree about the sweetness in cornbread. ARG. I have been known to put a bit o’ honey buttah on mine after the fact, though. Mmmm….
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