Buttermilk Cornbread

Last night we had vegetable soup and cornbread for dinner, one of my favorite cold-weather combinations. You’ll notice from the photo that this is yet another dish that’s best baked in my beloved cast-iron pan (see my blog entry about the pan from earlier in January). I’ve tried literally dozens of cornbread recipes because I love it so much. This is the standby, the one I always come back to. I’ve adapted it from a recipe in Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread, one of my favorite cookbooks. Written by the unforgettably named Crescent Dragonwagon (a true hippie from wayback), my book is starting to come apart at the seams from too much love.

Buttermilk Cornbread

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
½ t. salt
¼ t. baking soda
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
1 large egg
2 T. sugar
¼ cup canola oil (or other mild vegetable oil)
2 T. butter

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, whisk together egg, oil, sugar and buttermilk. Spray a 10-inch skillet with nonstick spray and heat over med-high heat on top of the stove. Melt the two tablespoons of butter in the pan until it starts to sizzle, then quickly combine wet and dry ingredients and scrape all batter into the skillet and transfer to the oven. Bake for about 25 minutes, until golden brown. I like mine slathered with butter and honey.