Looks interesting. I grew up with baking soda risen cornbread cooked in a skillet, not cakey or sweet like they serve it in California. I'll have to check, but I think we cook it at 350º F. after heating the oil in the pan on the stovetop so the batter sizzles when it hits the pan. I'm going on a search for the recipe you mentioned.

Thanks! I added the link which I'd forgotten. Arley's Bernard Clayton recipe is also a buttermilk/soda recipe. Probably not too different from yours.

I think that sweet cake cornbread is a restaurant thing in California. I don't personally know anyone (IRL) who makes it at home.

Sure you do. I make it and so does AnnT. Well, at least you kind of "know" us, LOL. It's what my Mother likes, and I often add blueberries.

I make the traditional no sugar cornbread, kind of heavy and dense and a little dry. It's what we like with beans, plus my celiac daughter can eat it because it doesn't have added wheat flour. Grandma, though, always made "Johnny Cake", which was sweet cornbread. Not super intensely sweet, but still sweet. I use that recipe for corn muffins, which is a completely different animal than cornbread.

Elery says when he was a kid his mother would make a "pone" of biscuits or cornbread, and it just meant that it was baked all in one pan, instead of in individuals biscuits or muffins. That's a completely different thing than cornpone, of course.

I grew the Oaxacan green corn for grinding, it's traditionally made into green corn tamales, a regional dish in that part of Mexico I understand. It made for a very interesting color of cornbread, and like your red cornmeal, didn't seem as much like corn. I eventually used it for hoe cakes, with a bit of sorghum molasses.

I'm glad you were happy with yours, there are so many corn varieties out there suitable for grinding, not just yellow or white.

Annie

LOL! Annie, I meant here in California. On the sweet tea/sweet cornbread spectrum, we're all over the map, neither north nor south.. Most of the European Americans here came through other parts of the country, so we have a lot of Southern aand Midwest influences. Iced tea is served straight, but with sweetener to fix up your own (but very split on who does or doesn’t (eww) do it). Cornbread is trickier, having to have a choice made,, but is often served with honey or honey butter for those who want it sweeter. Green cornbread sounds like a hoot! Blue corn tamales are delicious, but the cornbread isn't all that.

I will, I'm sure, use my cornbread pan for other things, eventually, but I'm super thrilled with its cornbreadability!

Southern Cornbread (the way we like it)

1 cup self rising cornmeal

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 egg

1 cup of buttermilk

Grease small iron skillet with 1 tablespoon oil and place in oven turned to 450*. Mix ingredients with spoon. When pan and oven is hot, pour in batter. It should sizzle when it hits the pan. Bake until golden brown on top and pick comes out clean. Turn out on plate when it comes out of the oven.

I like white cornmeal. (Martha White) (not MW SR MIIX) You can add salt and baking powder to plain cornmeal, but I will have to look up later how much. You can use bacon drippings for the oil. NEVER any sugar!

This makes one small skillet of cornbread or 2 of the corn stick pans. It is easy to cut in half or to double.

If you like it a bit more cake like, add 1/4 cup of self rising flour. You can bake in a pan, but we like the crust from the cast iron. Don't preheat the regular pan.

ETA: to use plain corn meal,

To one cup plain corn meal, add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon soda, and 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder.

Now, I have got to go buy some turnip greens, lol!

I make Texas style cornbread, which has no flour and no sugar, and I bake it in a cast iron skillet that is preheated. Typically it is made with bacon grease, but I use butter instead.

My popover pans are Nordic Ware heavy aluminum, and they do make a difference for that.

Lars, that is the way I make mine, except I use oil. Grandson is allergic to dairy.

Lars, I make it that way also. I put the cast iron in the oven cold and let it preheat with the oven.

That 'Texas style' seems like corn pone to me...?

And I think of sweet cornbread as a northeastern/New England kind of thing, I've come to appreciate it a bit more after making the non-sweet kind for many years.

I like to make muffins, or use an iron skillet, with olive oil or drippings, either one heated in the oven before pouring the batter in.

I'm not familiar with red cornmeal but it does look enticing. Also sounds darn good with the butter and jam. :-)

It is darned good with butter and jam. :) I have one of those low sugar preserves that's not technically allowed to be called “jam” because of the low sugarq. But it tastes like good jam, rather than candy, and doesn't bully aside other flavors, like the subtlety of the corn.

Arley's recipe is very similar to what y'all have been talking about. Here's how to make trail cornpone, as I wrote it up previously:

Pour boiling water over coarse yellow corn meal and a little salt, and let it ... steep? Is that the word? Mature? Bloat? In real trailspeak it's more set it aside while you're doing a bunch of other stuff, but that doesn't explain anything, right? Melt too much fat in a cast iron pan (or shovel blade), make fat fingers of dough (or a wad in your fist), and fry 'em up. Some people put a little baking soda in, but I don't know enough food science to know what that does.

Now I know more science and still don't know about the soda. Perhaps it softens it? Sweetens it? Or maybe it's a holdover from cornbread and wasn't subtracted when there was no buttermilk to activate it? Maybe there was enough acid in the cornmeal (which does taste sour), or even the water, to make it bubble?

I mentioned potentially putting sugar or honey in the red cornmeal because it lacks flavor. Proper cornpone is pucker sour, so I always assumed people added sugar because they wanted to counter the too much flavor of that.

The red cornmeal looks cool, and is ground fine so has a texture closer to bread than coarse yellow has. That makes it a good substitute for wheat bread until I have time to bake, but unlike yellow cornbread, it doesn't stand well on its own. Or maybe just needs more salt.

I don't really care about science and I know what works and is good. With cornbread, I am NOT going to mess around, My recipe works.

Sherry, nobody is trying to make you change!

I've absconded with my mother's cast iron frying pans (with permission) since the purchase of the cornbread pan, and I could use one, but for baking, I'd rather use the aluminum cake pan, and if I'm frying, I'll make the cornpone. I'm just really thrilled with the functionality and quality of my new cornbread pan.

A good while back, I also absconded with my mother's original Bundt pan, which I think is also Nordic Ware. It's HUGE, but makes a great cake. I had a couple of cutesy bundt mold pans that didn't make good cake. Recently, I acquired small and medium sized fluted glass bundt pans, and told about the cake in one. It was successful, baked well, etc., but less perfection than that big ol' original Bunet. Sometimes the pan matters. :)

I have been making sweet cake like cornbread for over 50 years, starting back in Illinois. That is the one we like. The one my mom made in a cast iron skillet had no flavor. It was blah.

This is the cornbread recipe that I make:

365-Day Buttermilk Cornbread

from Texascooking.com

Different proportions, but pretty much the same.

So, I found the name of the corn. It's Full Belly Farm Organic Red Cornmeal, and is available online from several places, for a premium price. If you can find it in a store, it'll be a lot less.

Baking soda softens grains and beans. A pinch in the bean pot insures thate ven old beans will get tender

Thanks, Linda!

I always add baking soda when I cook garbanzo beans because otherwise they take too long to get done - and I cook them in a pressure cooker, and so the pan does matter. I also cook rice in the pressure cooker.

LOL! Yes, I know Sweet Tea is its own thing, :) We just don't serve it here and provide sweetener to those who don't like the actual flavor of tea. Usually, there's a little tray of packets, at private homes and parties, as well as restaurants, because people are partial to their colors: White (granulated white table sugar), Brown (crytalized raw sugar), Pink (saccharine), Blue (aspartame) or Yellow (sucralose). Yuck! I respect those with a taste for Sweet Tea or sweetened tea, To each, her or his own. I have a little server of the packets, But I don't know if I can stop myself pulling a face if I'm served it unannounced, and being grateful if that gets me an offer of water instead,

I don't care for sweetened cornbread, either, but I just pretend it's mistimed cake. I like cake. But if it's at a restaurant, and I'm offered dessert, I can't help myself from saying, ”I have cornbread,” but pleasantly. I haven't been served sweet cornbread in a private home, but I could eat it if manners didn't allow a no-thank-you.

So, my new cornbread pan has high sides, and makes brown edges, and sizzles, just like a skillet. There’s no way to put acid in a cast iron (no enamel, of course) without drawing out some iron. That's why it's recommended for anemics. It does affect the flavor. That may be what's missing in the red cornbread, though I think it's actually the corny flavor, or maybe just needs more salt.

A couple days later, I can report that the lid works great. The cornbread isn't at all dried out or stale. I got my first middle piece today (no edges). It had more of the buttermilk flavor. I tried a little honey, but it's mesquite and way too strong a flavor for the delicate red cornmeal.

I know most on here don't use self-rising anything, but it really saves me a lot of time. Cornbread, biscuits, and pancakes alone, lol. Self-rising just has the baking powder and salt pre measured per cup. I like to keep plain and self-rising flour and cornmeal. If you don't cook as much of the things I do, it is easier to keep just the plain and add salt and baking powder.

Measuring your own also means you get the ratio you prefer, but if the premixed works for you, why not?

I don't want salt pre-added to my cornbread, biscuits, or pancakes. I always use less salt than what most recipes call for.

Also, I use baking soda and buttermilk when making cornbread, biscuits, and pancakes/waffles.

In addition to AP flour (which I rarely use), I have bread flour, whole wheat, rye, semolina, and vital wheat gluten. I use a combination of semolina, whole wheat, and bread flour when I make pasta, and I make pasta fairly frequently. I use whole wheat and bread flour when I make tortillas and pizzas, and I also add VWG to my pizza dough. Lately I've been making popovers instead of biscuits for breakfast, as I've decided that I like them a lot better.

I'm gaining appreciation for the subtle flavor of the red cornmeal cornbread, though it's almost gone. I wrapped a piece in a slice of Emmenthaller. Really good!

Sherry, I got some of that self rising white cornmeal from Elery's sister. She informed me that it was the only way to make the "right kind" of cornbread. However, it contains flour, and I thought it was all cornmeal. My oldest daughter is celiac, and so I'm accustomed to reading labels, but I didn't buy it. It just looked different when I measured it out, and sure enough, the label says it contains flour. Other than that, it was OK, I stuck the rest of it in the freezer and I'll use it up eventually. My daughter loves cornbread, though, and can't have regular baked goods, so I usually just make the cornbread from scratch.

As for pancake mix, well, I do use that. I make my own mix, though, and so I save the time and still have homemade pancakes. I do like pancakes, but seldom make them because Elery goes tsk tsk over the carbs. (grin)

I'll eat any old cornbread, I'm not picky, but I draw the line at sweet tea. I like plain old tea, no sugar or lemon or any other additive, except ice. Not green tea either, the good old fashioned black tea. Heck, I'll even drink Lipton and Red Rose and whatever the cheap store brand is, but no sugar. My ex mother-in-law was sure she was going to make me do as she said, and so she always handed me a glass of sweet tea, knowing that I disliked it. I always responded by setting the glass down, making a cup of tea and pouring it over ice. She countered by buying pre-sweetened tea bags. I then started drinking water. Talk about a power struggle, LOL.

Annie

Annie1992, I sorry I didn't specify which Martha White. I use MW Self rising. It doesn't contain flour. They also make a MW self rising MIX that does. There is a version that has buttermilk in the mix and I have to be sure not to get that one, as my oldest grandson is allergic to dairy and I use rice milk when making for him.

This is the one I use.

https://www.marthawhite.com/baking-products/corn-meal/enriched-self-rising-white-bolted-corn-meal

They make a plain corn meal, also.

To one cup plain corn meal, add 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon soda, and 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder.

I like Martha White, because the meal seems a bit more finely ground than other brands.

Here is the link to all their corn meal products.

https://www.marthawhite.com/baking-products/corn-meal

I like tea sweetened or not, and I also like green tea, but not any smoky teas.

I tend to add sweetener to my tea, but I'm fine if I do not have any. I also drink very cheap black tea, and I buy it at at Lebanese market, and the tea comes from Sri Lanka/Ceylon.

Sherry, all their had at my local Meijer was the self rising mix, although checking on line it does say the other is at my local Walmart. I hate Walmart worse than I hate cockroaches and mine is particularly bad. It never looks very clean and everyone there seems to have 6 or 7 kids that run about taking bites of fruit and opening packages, I don't know why they aren't in school. My secretary remarked years ago about candy jars and "booger picking little fingers" and I've never been able to drive that picture out of my mind, LOL.

Anyway, if I am forced to go there because they have something that Meijer is out of (like my Mother's much loved and equally much maligned (by me) Banquet Turkey Pot Pies, I'll check. I'm always looking for something that Amanda can have that the rest of the family will actually eat. And I always need cornbread at holidays for stuffing. I like to grind my own, but growing it is problematic as the wild turkeys seem to decimate it about 2 weeks before it's ready to pick and dry. (sigh) I tend to gravitate toward the Quaker yellow cornmeal because that's what Grandma used to buy and we like it just fine but it makes a pretty dense cornbread if you make it without any flour.

Annie

Annie, Can you get King Arthur flour? They have a gluten free flour mix that is supposed to be very good. You could mix some of that in with your Quaker corn meal. I think Dad used to buy that brand, Quaker.

If you can read America's Test Kitchen, they have an article on types of corn meal. I don't have a subscription, so I only get the first part.

https://www.americastestkitchen.com/taste_tests/2073-cornmeal

As far as tea, I like sweet tea, Lipton tea. 2 regular tea bags steeped in hot water. My tea pitcher looks like the one they always use in the Kool-Aid commercials. Fill with cold water, add 1 cup sugar, stir until sugar dissolves, and then add the steeped tea. I would like to learn how to like it unsweet, but just can't seem too. I like my coffee black and unsweet????