Cast Iron Cornbread

Cornbread

by Mark Fitzgerald

"On Green river Sept. 18th we commenced on a bread & water diet; yet made coffee of bread crusts, morning & evening with only milk enough to color it. Some days after, had a few messes of rice & sugar, with a change of corn mush & sugar for dinner.—The last week of our journey we had nothing but corn bread; except a little flour on the last days journey, we borrowed of Mr. Stevens."

The key to this recipe is cast iron - lots of heat and a way of keeping it hot after you add the batter.  You can use a cast iron skillet in an over, or it also makes a good dutch oven recipe.

For the corn meal we often will use popcorn that we regularly keep in our food storage.  We put it into our wheat grinder and set it for a course grind.  We also rarely have buttermilk, so we make our own mock buttermilk.  We substitute it with an equal amount of milk and to it 1 tablespoon of lemon juice.  This will help lower the pH and coagulate the milk.  

This 1800s version of this recipe would have used animal fat rather than shortening.  Though the sugar was available, it probably wouldn't have used it.  I like having it in there as it bring a brightness to the recipe.  The chemical leavening would have been something more like saleratus.  Either way this is fun recipe that turns out a wonder bread to use on our LDS trek. 

Ingredients

• 4 teaspoon butter flavored shortening (or better yet bacon drippings!)
• 2 cup cornmeal
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 large egg

Directions

Position the oven rack in the lower-middle of the oven. Put the shortening in an 8-inch cast iron skillet, set the skillet in the oven, and preheat the oven to 450ºF.  If you are going to use a dutch oven, use an 8 or 10 inch and a fair amount of coals.  For a 10 inch about 21 coals on top and 7 underneath and let it heat for 15 minutes.

Whisk 1 1/3 cup of the cornmeal with sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a small bowl.  The remaining 2/3 cup of the cornmeal goes into a medium-sized bowl.  Add the boiling water and stir to make a stiff mush. Gradually whisk in the buttermilk and once there are no more lumps whisk in the egg.  Take this liquid mixture and add the dry ingredients until just combined. Be gentle.

Open the oven and the batter into the hot pan.  Let there be steam!  Bake until golden brown, about 18 minutes. When you pull out the bread, flip over the cast iron and turn the cornbread out onto a wire rack.

Information

Makes a pan full. Cut into 10 pieces.
80 calories per serving

Make sure to see how this recipe fits into the entire menu we have cooked up for LDS Pioneer Handcart Trek recreations.