This is my maternal grandmother’s recipe. She called it “corn muffin” (and sometimes “muffin bread”) rather than “cornbread”, I think because it’s not a strictly traditional pone-style cornbread. Texturally, it’s very tender, with a crumb somewhere between the coarseness of pone and the cakeiness of Jiffy Bread. It is savory, like a traditional cornbread.

Dry ingredients

Left side for self-raising; right side for all purpose.

1C    self rising flour  |      1C AP flour
1C    plain corn meal    |      1C corn meal
1t    baking powder      |  2 1/2t baking powder
1/2t  baking soda        |    1/2t baking soda
1/2t  salt               |    3/4t salt

Wet ingredients

2   eggs
2C  buttermilk
2T  neutral oil
1t  sugar

Method

Preheat oven to 400F/200C. Pour enough neutral oil into your cooking vessel (preferably a cast iron pan) to cover its bottom. Put the pan in the oven while it is heating.

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another. Whisk dry ingredients together, and mix wet ingredients until eggs are beaten.

When the oven is at temperature, mix the dry and wet ingredients together. Pour mixed ingredients into hot pan. Bake about 25 min, until no longer pale on top, the edges are browned and crisp, and a toothpick in the center comes out dry/crumby.

Variations

  • This recipe can be easily halved. The full recipe is sized for a 10" frying pan, so a smaller pan will get you a better rise with a half-batch. Also, for a half-batch you may wish to reduce the cooking time slightly, or at the very least keep a close eye on it, but I let it go the full 25 minutes to get a good crusty bottom.
  • The recipe does work with buttermilk substitutes, if you don’t have that available or if you’re dairy-free
    • 2T full-fat plain yogurt (or lemon juice) plus plant milk to make 2C. Stir and leave for a minute before using
  • Despite how thin the batter is compared to a traditional waffle batter, this recipe makes excellent corn waffles.