Corn Bread 1

One day, I realized that I had almost no baking experience. I opened my copy of "How to Cook Everything" and looked for something I could break. I stumble across corn bread and my mouth begins to water, and my stomach begins to growl. Since I had all the ingredients I set off!

Unfortunately, this corn bread was no good. It was pretty flavorless. Since I remember my dad making awesome corn bread once or twice, I knew I could do better. Instead of taking the easy route and just asking my dad how he makes his, I decided to embark on a quest to make the perfect corn bread.

One of my favorite food blogs that I follow is Casual Kitchen. I love their simple recipes and tips on cooking frugally. CK's corn bread recipe was the second one I tried and I was very impressed. It is a sweeter corn bread, which may have some southern folks turning over in their graves, but it is a good starting point. Tonight I decided to improve slightly on recipe by using bacon fat. Also note that I used regular Quaker corn meal instead of the good stuff. I need to find the good stuff before I can use it.

Corn Bread, from Casual Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups white flour
3/4 cup corn meal
4 Tablespoons sugar
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg
1 cup milk
4 Tablespoons melted bacon fat

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 375F.
2) Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl.
3) Beat the egg with the milk and add to the dry ingredients. Quickly add the bacon fat and stir with a rubber scraper until ingredients are combined well.
4) Spread the batter into a buttered 9-inch pie dish.
5) Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes, or until it is lightly browned around the edges, or until a fork stuck into the center of the pan comes out clean. Serve hot.

Serves 4-6.



This iteration was even better than my last one. There was a slight taste of bacon in it and was excellent drizzled with clove honey.

The next time I make corn bread I am going to do a more southern style corn bread. Mostly corn meal and no sugar. I will also calibrate my oven before then, as I think it's slightly too hot. After 28 minutes, the top was golden brown and delicious but the bottom was a little too crispy.

By the way, this corn bread is AMAZING with split pea soup...