Vera Obias' Cheddar & Black Pepper Cornbread Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between New York cornbread and southern cornbread? ›

While both styles generally use the same ingredients -- cornmeal, flour, eggs, and baking powder -- the variance lies in the flavor and texture. Northern-style cornbread tends to be sweeter, moister, and cake-like compared to its Southern counterpart.

While regular cornbread is made by pouring batter into in a pan or skillet and baking it in the oven, for hot water cornbread, the batter is shaped into cakes and fried in hot fat in a skillet on the stovetop.

Baking powder & baking soda: To help the bread rise.

Cornmeal gives cornbread its classic color and flavor, but too much can make your bread crumbly. Try replacing a little bit of cornmeal with flour. The specific measurements will depend on how much cornmeal and flour is in your recipe, but you should try to have more flour than cornmeal in your batter.

The most common theory is a change in cornmeal itself. Until early in the 20th century, Southern cornmeal was made with sweeter white corn and it was water-ground. When industrial milling came along, that changed. The steel-roller mills used yellow corn that was harvested before it was ripe, so it had less sugar.

She notes that Northern cornbread is sweeter, lighter, and more cake-like than Southern cornbread. Not surprisingly, it includes sugar (or molasses, in the earlier centuries), unlike traditional Southern cornbread.

Can I substitute water for milk in cornbread mix? Yes, you can, but it may result in a less rich flavor. If you're out of milk, try using cream or half-and-half, evaporated or powdered milk, or even plain yogurt. If you have dietary restrictions, try soy milk or oat milk.

The thing that distinguishes Southern cornbread from, say Yankee cornbread, or any other cornbread one is likely to eat outside of the southern states, is that it is savory, not sweet, and it is made mostly with cornmeal.

In the Southern Appalachian Mountains, people are crazy for their Cornbread and Milk, a concoction made by crumbling leftover cornbread into a tall drinking glass and topping it with milk. It's usually buttermilk, although some people prefer "sweet milk", a vernacular term for regular fresh milk.

The extra egg which is increased protein and binder makes the cornbread denser and heavier in texture.

Is it better to use buttermilk or milk in cornbread? ›

I recommend using buttermilk in this cornbread recipe for the best texture; it helps keep it soft and moist. If you use just regular milk for this recipe, your cornbread will come out drier than I personally care for, but since cornbread is classically crumbly, you might be able to get away with it.

Note: We recommend allowing cornbread batter to sit for 10 to 15 minutes before baking, so if you prefer, you can delay heating the oven until you make the batter.

As for the best cornmeal for cornbread, either fine- or medium-grind cornmeal is a great choice. Medium-grind cornmeal will bring slightly more texture and grittiness to the batter, which you may or may not want (it's up to you!). You can use fine or medium cornmeal in these extra corny muffins.

Just like the buttermilk, sour cream can be added to help cornbread stay moist. Just like buttermilk is fermented milk left over from making butter, sour cream is fermented cream. It is actually thicker than buttermilk and has more tang to it.

Real, traditional, Southern-style cornbread is savory, not sweet, and always has been.

A hoecake is cornbread made minimalist—a thin, unleavened round made from the simplest batter (cornmeal, water, and salt), crisp at the edges, glistening on both sides from the fat it was fried in, golden in patches.

There are cornmeal puddings served with sweet sauces, but no Southern cook would risk the spoiling of her cornbreads by sweetening them." In 1937, the Times reported that "cornbread in Kentucky is made with white, coarsely ground cornmeal. Never, never are sugar and wheat flour used in cornbread.