HA! Should we pop some corn?

I'm not crazy about cornbread unless it has cheese and jalapenos. That one sounds pretty sweet. More like a dessert.

If you do like buttermilk but don't keep it around, there is a simple trick. Use a shot of vinegar mixed into the milk. It will thicken in a couple of minutes and taste similar to buttermilk when baked. That alone adds a ton of flavor! I would also cut back on the sugar a lot.

LOL not a cornbread thread! Do a search there have been
several cornbread threads over the years and all have been whoppers. So much diversity
on how one likes there cornbread but lots of good recipes abound.

The flavor of the cornbread is all about the corn. back in the days before Round-up ready field corn, I would get some corn meant for cattle feed and have it ground. Oh! My!...
Now it's all GMO crap....not that GMO is bad but not Round up ready...because that means the field has been sprayed with Round up....and I ain't eatin' that!

I make the same recipe you posted....with proper corn....it';s fabulous!

I might argue the various merits of white and yellow cornmeal (and finely ground yellow cornmeal), but I agree on the sweet = cake thing. I don't like it if it gets mushy and doughy in the moisture of one's mouth.

Cornpone (I'm sure I've posted this before):

Use your best judgment on quantities. Pour boiling water over coarse yellow corn meal and a little salt, and let it soak in. Melt a bunch of fat in a cast iron pan (or shovel blade), make fat fingers of dough (or a wad in your fist), and fry 'em up in your frying pan. Maybe half an inch of oil. Add a bit of baking soda if you like (I don't).

I've been on a quest, however, to find the "right" corn muffin recipe. They were short, both in stature and in grease. :) Yellow and coarse but soft, though very short as in not a bit fluffy. Slightly sweet and the only reason I've ever known for sweet orange marmalade. Looked like little yellow hockey pucks with a toasty top, but oh, so delicious. I don't have the patience to try to replicate them without a starting point...

I use plain whole milk yoghurt in place of buttermilk for quick breads and use olive oil instead of bacon fat. I also preheat the skillet or tins in the oven.

1/2 the sugar in that recipe would likely be more than enough for my taste = J

I like a less-sweet cornbread too. I often add frozen/thawed whole corn to the batter for extra flavor; you can whirr the frozen corn in the blender before adding if you want a smoother texture. Don't have to change the recipe any other way. If you use canned whole corn, you may need to adjust the liquid in the recipe. And I used to have a recipe that used creamed corn, but seem to have lost it.

about substituting for buttermilk: it's acidic, so it reacts with the baking powder to make the bread rise. Like cooper said, you can use plain milk (I use coconut or almond milk, even) with a teaspoon of vinegar.

When I make my cornbread I use a big cast iron frying pan which I preheat in the oven. To me the cast iron makes a better cornbread than other kinds of pans.

Although I like it all, I'm not as fond of the sweet cornbread, either. I was raised on cornbread that wasn't sweet - WV style. Since I didn't get my mother's recipe for it I have been on the search for the closest thing and I finally found it - Publix store brand yellow self-rising corn bread mix. The recipe is on the bag. I make it in a cast iron skillet, too, heating up the skillet before putting the batter in. I don't put as much oil in the skillet as the recipe calls for though. But unlike my mom, often I also add chopped jalapeno's. I also occasionally make fried corn bread, so good but not good for you. And yes, I often add vinegar to milk in any recipe that calls for buttermilk. It works out exactly the same and I don't have all that extra buttermilk to waste since we don't drink it.

I agree that the key is the quality of the cornmeal--I don't buy anything in the stores and always use locally stone ground cornmeal, sometimes with heritage varieties of corn, like Bloody Butcher. (I use the same cornmeals for polenta). And always make the cornbread in a cast iron skillet.

I agree that a lot of cornmeal sold in supermarkets has very little flavor. It's impossible to get a good cornbread--no matter what the recipe--if the cornmeal isn't full of flavor. I am copying here a Cook's Illustrated magazine brief write-up.

They liked Arrowhead Mills Organic Yellow Cornmeal.

To find our favorite cornmeal, we made corn muffins with three different brands; we were surprised to discover how much the flavor and grind can vary among different brands. Some muffins had a barely perceptible corn flavor and a dusty texture, while others had a clean, pure flavor and gritty bite.

Our winning whole-grain cornmeal had a texture resembling slightly damp, fine sand. It made muffins with deep corn flavor and delicate crumb. The second whole-grain cornmeal produced great flavor, but the texture was coarser (akin to kosher salt), making muffins that were too coarse. The degerminated cornmeal had a fine texture (similar to table salt) but made muffins that were bland and dry.

Our conclusion? For the best corn muffins, look for more finely ground whole grain cornmeal. Degerminated cornmeal doesn't supply enough flavor, and if the cornmeal is ground too coarsely, your muffins will be too heavy.

The only thing worse than sweet cornbread is sweet cheddar jalapeño cornbread, which I had in TX last month. Eggy, cake-like cornbread. I like jalapeño cornbread, but it shouldn't be sweet

When I was a kid I loved lace cornbread, although that was never a make-at-home thing.

And then you have the "wrench in the works". I grew my own organic heritage corn last year, Oaxacan Green, so my cornmeal is neither white nor yellow, it's green. The usual use in Mexico is for green corn tamales, but I use it for "hoecakes" or cornbread. How finely ground depends on how many times I feel like running it through the grinder, LOL.

I even like Jiffy Mix muffins, I add blueberries to those, and I make tortillas and arepas for Amanda from masa.

In fact, I like everything you can make from cornmeal except tamales (too mushy) and mush. I don't care if you call it grits, or polenta, or whatever, it's all mush to me. It reminds me of very bad times when I was a child and there was nothing else. The only way I'd eat it then was sliced and fried, many times I'd go hungry rather than eating the stuff. I know others love the stuff but I just can't.....

Annie