from the former inn's recipe archive:

Dairy Hollow House
Skillet-Sizzled Cornbread

Makes 1 Skillet, or 8 large wedges

            The cornbread we served at the inn and its single most requested recipe, this is the first Southern food Crescent ever learned to fix. It's the recipe used in the inn’s very first Moos Letter, and it has been in many, many magazines and newspapers. 

            If you find the amount of butter melted in the bottom of the skillet truly unconscionable, you can cut it back to a tablespoon, and it'll still be very good.

            Yellow cornmeal was used here in the Ozarks. In the Deep South, and to the East, white cornmeal was more frequently the choice. Of course, whichever one you first encountered is the right one.  (Our cornbread was ready for its close-up in this 1990 inn photograph of Thanksgiving side-dishes).

 Ingredients:

1 cup stone ground yellow cornmeal. 

1 cup unbleached white flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 to 3 tablespoons sugar

1 1/4 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup plain yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup water)

1 large egg

1/4 cup mild vegetable oil, such as corn, canola, or peanut

Pam

2 to 4 tablespoons butter

1.      Preheat oven to 375. Make sure your oven's accurate, too; it really needs to be up to temperature to get perfect results.

2.      In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and sugar. (If baking powder or soda appear at all lumpy, sift them in). Stir well to combine.

3.       In a small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, egg, and oil.

4.      Spray a 9 to 10 ¼ -inch cast iron skillet with Pam (our skillets are 10 1/4 inch; this size is called a Number 7). Put the skillet on over medium heat, add the butter, and heat until the butter melts and is sizzling seriously. Tilt the pan to coat the sides of the skillet.

5.      As the butter's melting, quickly pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and, using a wooden spoon, stir the wet and dry together with as few strokes as possible --- only as many as are needed to combine the two. Don't beat it; don't smooth it out. Scrape the batter into the hot, buttery skillet --- if you've gotten it hot enough it will sizzle as it goes in --- and pop it in the oven immediately.

6.      Bake until golden brown on top, about 25 to 30 minutes. Serve, hot, cut in wedges.  

Home • Up • Study with CD • Is that your real name? • Bios & Bibliographies • Fearless Writing • Children's Books • Kids Ask Questions • CD's Cookbooks • Recipe Index • I Want To Get Published • Want to publish? • Ned's Memorial Page • Mentors
©Dragon, Pen & Inc. 2000-2007 :: Last Updated: 03/05/07 :: crescent@dragonwagon.com