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

FAQs

Why do you put baking soda in cornbread? ›

It makes the batter rise a bit so your cornbread will be light and a little fluffy. If you omit some sort of leavening agent, and baking soda is just one kind, your finished cornbread after baking will be about an inch high, and shall we say, pretty dense.

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.

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.

My ultimate comfort food is any type of yeast bread (see: Simple Farmhouse Bread), but quickbreads like cornbread and apple bread come in a close second.

Eggs, or egg substitutes help add structure to the cornbread.

However, if you're in a pinch, the substitution is one teaspoon baking soda equals three teaspoons baking powder. Baking soda is also much stronger than baking powder and, by trying to provide enough leavening, you may wind up with an unpleasant metallic, salty taste in the final baked product.

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

Let the batter sit before baking.

We found that if you leave the batter to sit at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes before baking it, the cornmeal has some extra time to absorb flavor from the other ingredients and the leaveners (baking powder and baking soda) get a head start.

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.

You can substitute water for milk on a one to one basis in your recipe. It won't be quite as rich, but it will be cornbread. There are plenty of recipes for hot water cornbread. The batter is made with cornmeal, salt, sugar, and boiling water.

What is the difference between Yankee cornbread and Southern cornbread? ›

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.

The name came from the Algonquin word apan, meaning "baked." The Narragansett word for cornbread, nokechick, became no-cake and then hoe-cake. Because cornbread traveled well, some began calling it journey cake, which evolved into the name Johnny cake. But whatever it was called, it was all cornbread.

Is cornbread hard to digest? A. Cornbread contains fibre, which is not easily digested or absorbed by the body and passes through the digestive system relatively intact. Fibre also controls bowel motions by softening and increasing the weight and size of the stool, all of which make it easier to pass stool.

It can be made in a variety of ways, including as a savory bread to be served with a meal or as a sweeter bread to be eaten as a snack. Some people in the South also refer to cornbread as "corn pone" or "hoecake."

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.

Dry Ingredients – In addition to the cornmeal you'll need some all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda for the cornbread batter. The flour helps lighten it up a bit. If you use just cornmeal, the bread will be quite dense.

Gan — who notes that any substitutions may change the texture and flavor of the final dish — recommended using three times the amount of baking powder in lieu of baking soda. So, if a recipe calls for one teaspoon of baking soda, use three teaspoons (or one tablespoon) of baking powder.

It's important not to use too much baking soda in recipes, as it can result in a metallic, soapy flavor.

If you don't have baking soda on hand, you can use triple the amount of baking powder instead. Alternative substitutions include potassium bicarbonate, baker's ammonia, or self-rising powder.