Real Southern Cornbread Recipe

Southern Cornbread is bread to accompany a meal. It is not cake. It is not dessert. It is not sweet. If you like sweet cornbread, fine...put sugar in it. Just don't call it Southern Cornbread.







Note: You must use a cast iron skillet. It will not be the same without it. And it's the traditional way to cook Southern Cornbread. Cast iron is inexpensive and it last a lifetime. You can pass it down to your children.

Ingredients
(This recipe is for a 10" skillet)
2 cups white cornmeal
1/3 cup flour
1 and 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/8 tablespoon baking soda (omit if you use regular milk rather than buttermilk)
1/4 tablespoon salt
Dash of black pepper
1 cup buttermilk (more or less)
3 tablespoons bacon drippings (you may substitute cooking oil but will lose flavor)

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2. Prepare the skillet by placing the bacon drippings in the skillet and roll the skillet or use a paper towel to coat the interior sides of the skillet. Place the skillet in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes
3. Meanwhile, in a medium size bowl, combine all the dry ingredients and mix well.
4. Add 3/4 of the buttermilk and stir.
Remove skillet from oven and slowly add the hot oil (bacon drippings) from the skillet, into the batter. Stir well. Note: the skillet should be very hot but not smoking.
5. Watching the consistency of the batter, carefully add remainder of buttermilk if needed.
The consistency of the cornbread batter should look like a thick pancake batter. This may require a little more or less of the remaining buttermilk. If the mix is too thick, add more buttermilk. If the mixture is too thin, add more cornmeal.
6. Lightly sprinkle the skillet bottom with dry corn meal and pour in the batter.
Immediately, place skillet in pre-heated oven.
7. Bake at 400 degrees approximately 25 minutes until the top is golden brown.
8. After the top is brown, remove the cornbread from the oven and flip over in the skillet. Continue baking another 5 minutes.

Tip: If the cornbread sticks, run a table knife completely around the inside wall of the skillet while gently shaking. This will usually free the bread for you to flip it over.

Southern Cornbread goes well with all vegetables but a traditional Southern meal would be fried pork chops or Southern fried chicken with black eyed peas and greens (turnip, mustard or collards) and iced tea.