Breadmaking 101

Lesson 5: Cornbread

And a Variety of Ways to Bake

You have lots of options when you're ready to bake your bread. The preferred Southern method is a small (9- or 10-inch, not the big chicken-frying one) cast iron skillet. While the oven is preheating, you put the skillet in the oven with a couple tablespoons of corn oil in the bottom. When the oven is ready, the oil will be nice and hot. Be careful when you pour the batter into the pan, because the oil will immediately start frying the bread and it can splatter. This gives you an excellent crispy crust all along the sides and bottom, which, if you ask me, is the best part of cornbread.

If you don't have a cast iron skillet, don't run out and get one just to try a cornbread recipe. But if you enjoy making cornbread and want another gadget to find room for in your kitchen, by all means get one. They're really inexpensive, handy for frying all sorts of things, and can last more than a lifetime if handled properly. You can bake cornbread in a 9-inch cake pan, but use a metal one, not glass. You'll probably still want to let the pan heat up in the oven with a little oil before baking. This is the pan many of the recipes in “The Best Quick Breads” call for.

Cornbread can also be made into muffins, which you cook the same way as any other muffin. Since the batter is thick, you can get the tins pretty full. You can't really preheat the muffin tin, but do spray it with cooking spray or rub it with a little butter or oil before loading it up. My experience has been that you get eight to 10 muffins with a regular cornbread recipe. Again, they'll take less time to cook, so keep an eye on them. Both the loaves and muffins are done when golden brown and kind of springy in the middle. I guess you could use the toothpick test, but I never have.

There's also a pan that makes the muffin-like creations known as corn sticks, which resemble tiny ears of corn. I imagine these take a lot less time to bake, because they are so small, but I don't own one of these pans so I can't speak from experience. They're cute, but it's going to taste just as good coming out of a big pan, so why worry about it? There are recipes made especially for these pans, though, so if you happen to have one lying around, now you know what to do with it.

In my house, leftover cornbread is kept in the refrigerator. It gets really hard in there, so you’ll want to heat it up again before you eat. If you want a really traditional Southern treat, crumble some of your leftover cornbread in a glass, fill it with buttermilk and eat it with a spoon. My husband swears it’s delicious, but I don’t like buttermilk, so I’ll never know. But it really is considered a great comfort food, if you’re into that sort of thing.

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