Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread (recipe: Southern Buttermilk Cornbread)
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We have definite opinions about bread. Biscuits are biscuits. Hushpuppies are hushpuppies. We don’t refer them as bread. We do call Hush Puppies shoes but this is a food blog not a fashion blog. We are talking about the edible hushpuppies. Sliced loaf bread is called light bread because it’s lighter than cornbread, the co-mother of all Southern breads. Cornbread shares top billing with biscuits. We grow corn, not wheat, making cornmeal more accessible for our ancestors than wheat flour. The use of corn in Southern cooking was heavily influenced by Native Americans. Flour was reserved for biscuits and sweets. Bread and roll making took a backseat to cornbread and biscuit making.
Cornbread takes on different forms. Hot Water Cornbread is cornmeal, hot water and salt. The cornmeal has no leavening which results in a thin, dense bread. The batter is dropped by spoonfuls into hot grease and fried quickly. Depending on the thickness of the batter, you can get cornbread nuggets that resemble the consistency of hush puppies (bread not shoe) or make the batter thin and the edges will spread out and take on a lacy appearance and get very crispy. A thick batter is used to make hand sized pones that are placed side-by-side in a cast iron skillet that has the bottom covered in a sufficient amount of fat. The pones are flattened with the back of a hand leaving finger indentations. They’re baked in a hot oven until crispy all over. Once they’re turned out on a serving plate, they are easily divided into individual pieces. Hot Water Cornbread can be made into a “cake” by pouring the batter into a hot skillet containing fat and baking until the top is browned. It’s turned out to a plate and, in rustic fashion, pieces are torn off instead of cut.
The top of the plate has the cornbread of medium consistency dropped into hot oil. The bottom shows lace cornbread which is made by thinning out the batter before dropping by spoonfuls into the oil. All the cornbread was made from the same batch of batter. The only difference was the consistency.
A “cake” of cornbread . Just pinch off a hunk!
The image that most people recognize as cornbread looks something like this:
That is fine-looking cornbread. The inside is moist, the top nicely browned. It smells heavenly baking in the oven. To both my grandmothers, this was known as Eggbread and it was made for the expressed purpose of becoming the main ingredient in dressing. Everyday cornbread was some form of Hot Water Cornbread. Perhaps the cost of the extra ingredients for this cornbread could be justified only for special occasions. Where I come from, many folks considered it a crime to put sugar in cornbread. They’re drop dead serious about it. They think if you put sugar in your cornbread batter it becomes cake, which is as confusing as heck since the Hot Water Cornbread made by the skilletfuls is called a “cake” of cornbread.
For a time, I convinced myself that I preferred Eggbread over Hot Water Cornbread. It had everything to do with my ill-fated attempt at being highfalutin and very little to do with my real taste preference. I’m eternally grateful to whatever it was that caused me to get down off my high horse. Eggbread is fabulous and has the right to all the fame and glory that comes its way. It will forever be the star ingredient in my dressing. Being true to my heritage and my personality, I’m back to cooking Hot Water Cornbread as our everyday bread. I did come to realize that I prefer the taste of a medium grind cornmeal instead of the fine grind that my family used. Medium grind has more flavor. The nostalgic side of me would love to use such familiar brands as Alabama King or J.T. Pollard both milled in Alabama. But I’ve grown attached to the flavor of Great Smoky Mountains Stone Ground Corn Meal. I’m at peace with that decision. Finally.
Y’all come see us!
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Egg Bread (Buttermilk Cornbread)
According to the law of the land, this recipe contains NO SUGAR. If you prefer sugar in your cornbread, proceed carefully. Cooking oil can be substituted for bacon drippings if you feel you have to.
2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1/2 cup self-rising flour
3 tbsp. bacon drippings
Wet ingredients. Buttermilk and eggs. Mix.
Dry ingredients. Cornmeal, flour, baking soda and salt. This is where your sugar would go. Mix.
Heat cast iron skillet. Add bacon drippings and melt.
Mix together aforementioned wet and dry ingredients. Pour half the melted bacon dripping into batter to add flavor throughout. Stir well. Pour batter into hot skillet. If you’ve gotten your skillet hot enough, the edges of your batter will bubble up immediately. Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.
Sugarless Eggbread
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Trackbacks
- The Other White Sauce « Syrup and Biscuits
- To Stuff or Not to Stuff (recipe: Old Fashioned Cornbread Dressing) | Syrup and Biscuits
- Stuffing vs. Dressing: Which Would You Choose?
- Dotted Swiss for Easter (Recipe: Easter Dinner Menu Suggestions) | Syrup and Biscuits
- Hot Water Cornbread | Syrup and Biscuits
I love fried cornbread! (the lace variety ) with melted butter. DeeeeLish
Alan,
We love it, too! Good stuff!
Funny, I’ve never heard it called Egg Bread before! That’s the way my Mama always made her cornbread. She also made what she called “hoe cakes”, which was the fried cornbread – not sure if it was hot water cornbread or not – will have to ask her. I burned my hand one time when I was at my Grandma’s and she told me to take the bread out of the oven and I didn’t have the pot holder all the way to the end of the handle of the skillet and I had a little rounded burn on my palm! – never did it again though! Regular cornbread batter is pretty good fried too, I do that sometimes if I am in a hurry.
Ann,
My people were pretty particular about bread and all the derivations. I would love to know how your Mama made her hoecakes.
I always sprinkle some cornmeal in the bottom of the skillet before pouring the batter in. It makes the bottom crusty. My daughter asked me one day why I do that and I told her because my Mama always did.
Mona, that’s a good tip! I’m going to try that the next time I make Eggbread! Thanks!
Water, salt and fine ground cornmeal at our house. Either in hoecakes (one big cake in the skiller) or pones (hand sized separate cakes in the pan). And, then there were the hushpuppies with fish. I loved the crispy crust but didn’t like the rest of it. I really prefer what you call egg bread.
Sue,
I loved the crust of the Hot Water Cornbread, too, but didn’t like the inside until I switched over to a medium grind cormeal like Great Smoky Mountain. It has better flavor and texture. Give it a try!
I never had any relatives from the South we are all Northerners. My first cornbread was served by my new SIL and she baked it in a cast iron pan bought especially for that supper. I have made cornbread from scratch but I do like my a little sweet. I buy Jiffy (probably a bad word for you guys down there) but it is really good I bake it in an 8″ pan. My Mil who was born in Kentucky liked her cornbread like you all do. I couldn’t stand it myself but ate it out of respect for her. She cooked a lot of things in a different way than I was used to. God bless her she’s been gone since 2004.
Darlene,
What a good-hearted soul you are! You brightened your mother-in-law’s day by eating her cornbread. What’s considered good cornbread is all a matter of taste. Just stick with what you think is good!
No Southern kitchen is without cornmeal for cornbread. I have a English friend that I have tried to explain cornbread and even sent a cornbread mix to but I think you pictures and explanation will do it just right so I have forwarded it to him!!
Jean,
I hope you friend enjoys the post! Maybe he will even want to make some cornbread. <3
I don’t care what it’s called – I LOVE it all!!!!!! Will have to get some medium grind and give it a try – sounds great. Jackie, thanks for the lesson – it was very informative!!!
Mary,
Enjoy some cornbread!
My mother and my grandmother both made nothing but “cake” cornbread, so it is what I grew up eating, upon marrying my husband and visiting his family in NC the first time. We were all in the kitchen and my husband’s mom mentioned cooking some cornbread to go with dinner.. I got excited as it had been some since I had some … when dinner was served I was very confused ! I asked where the cornbread was?? They handed me a plate of fried bread and said here it is. I of course took the bread trying to be polite but in my mind I was thinking , what in the world are these people thinkin’ this is not cornbread ?! Of course I ate the fried cornbread and man was it ever good! I think I made a pig of myself by requesting more fried cornbread than I probably should have, but it was some good stuff! Of course after my visit in NC I had to call my momma in AL. to tell her all about this fried corn bread I had just eaten.
I love both versions of my beloved corn bread, it is soo yummy!! I’m cooking bbq chicken for dinner tonight and all this talk about corn bread has made me want some.. so tonight it’s the “cake “version that will grace our dinner table.
I don’t think I’ve ever made buttermilk cornbread…going to have to give that a try.
Ginger
Ginger,
You did such a good job relating your confusion about cornbread at your husband’s family’s house I felt like I was there with you! It is confusing when you’re so used to things being prepared one way and somebody throws you a curve ball. Thanks for sharing this delightful story with us. You are such a blessing to me!
Can you use self rising corn meal mix? If so, what modifications need to be made?
Carol,
You can use self-rising cornmeal and leave out salt and baking soda. I hope you enjoy some good cornbread!
Love Hush Puppies & Corn Bread, YUM! Job well done!
Jessica,
Thank you for reading and commenting. I hope you visit us again. Love your blog!
My Kentucky-born husband said that if there was ever any leftover cornbread in his house he would have it the next morning crumbled in a bowl with warm milk and sugar. That doesn’t sound very good to me. I do remember my mother-in-law telling me (her Yankee daughter-in-law) that good cornbread NEVER has sugar in it. She made it often, and it WAS good. My favorite is to put it in a bowl and add a couple scoops of pinto beans (simmered all day with a ham hock) with a little chopped onion on top. My husband calls it “Brown Beans and Cornbread” and it is one of his favorite winter suppers.
Chris,
Cornbread and beans with fresh chopped onion is a classic rustic dish. Lots of folks like to pour buttermilk over crumbled cornbread. They called it Cornbread and Clabber. People have definite ideas about cornbread: sugar/no sugar, leavening/no leavening. The taste preference for cornbread are almost as sacred as the different taste preferences for BBQ sauce. You could start a feud Hatfield and McCoy style by dissing someone’s BBQ sauce!
South Alabama (butler co.) relatives taught me to make it with self-rising cornmeal and milk (maybe a little flour, salt and pepper). No egg, but baked like your egg bread. It’s denser but so so good. That’s what we eat anyway!
Rachel,
It’s great that you found a cornbread recipe that you love! That’s the most important thing. We need cornbread to go with peas and greens. Can’t imagine eating some of our iconic dishes with it. Thanks for stopping by!
If you haven’t already heard him, Mark Lowry has a thing on Youtube called ” Take a pill and cook those vegetables”.
He is a Christian comedian/accomplished songwriter, having sung with the Gaither Vocal Band.
He wrote the Christmas Hymn, “Mary did you know.”
My point is, he said if you put sugar in cornbread it becomes cake. LOL
Even the fake cornbread in a box shows how you can put chocolate frosting on it, for crying out loud!
Thanks for keeping me posted on all you are doing.
I’d gladly do the dishes if I could lick to bowl your dressing is mixed in.
That is one of my favorite memories when my Mama used to make dressing.
Peace and blessing to you and yorn!
Barbara, I haven’t heard of Mark Lowry but I will look him up. My husband calls cornbread with sugar “cake” too!
I will have a complete post for Cornbread dressing later on tonight. It will include all the ingredient amounts.
Jackie, this is how Esther made her cornbread, by using the eggbread recipe shown here. She also taught me to make the hot water cornbread using water,salt and white cornmeal. She also made me use an iron skillet. She made it both ways, and I tend to make the hush puppie style. She collectively called both types hoe cake. Love eating hoe cake with white peas and white butter beans.
Kevin,
You’re not kidding about hoecakes going with white peas and white butterbeans!! That’s mighty good eating.
I have been eating cornbread in all forms all of my 62 years!! My grandmother always made “cake” cornbread, fried cornbread and scalded cornbread. We made our hushpuppies with cornmeal, chopped up onion and a can of tomatoes broke up. In later years we have started using Rotel for our hushpuppies. We have big fish frys and always hushpuppies!!!
Nancy,
Tomatoes in hushpuppies sound unique and delicious!
I bet your scaled cornbread is what we call hot water cornbread: cornmeal, hot water and salt. No leavening.
You should try the hushpuppies w/tomatos!! We boil water on the stove and put the cornmeal in the water. Then dip it out with a spoon and my grandmother used to “mold” it in her hand. It’s too hot for me!! I just drop by the spoon full in the frying pan and fry it up!! Right, not leavening or anything else!!
Nancy,
I’m tickled to death you found us! Welcome home!
I’m going to have to try hush puppies with tomatoes.
I dip out my hot water cornbread with a spoon, too. Why burn your hands when you don’t have to?
Loved your facebook post! I remember my Southern, Georgian grandmother speaking a little condescendingly about my Florida Grandmother not really making “Cornbread.”
According to “Gan,” my paternal grandmother made Eggbread, because “real,” traditional Southern Cornbread didn’t have eggs!
Jamie,
Eggbread is the term the old timers called what we know as “Southern Cornbread”. They would call hot water cornbread “everyday cornbread”. In my family, eggbread was only made as a base for dressing. I have found this trend to be regional, even among Southerners. It seems that hotwater cornbread was specific to the rural parts if the Deep South. I still make it today.
This brings back many happy memories of watching my Nanny who was from West Virginia, make cornbread in my mom’s black cast iron skillet. I now live in Australia and my Nanny is now with her Lord and Saviour. I am so happy to have this recipe! She never used a written recipe when she made it and I thought I would never be able to taste it again. My brothers and I loved to eat it with butter and grape jelly as our desert after dinner. Can’t wait to get myself a cast iron skillet and bake it again! Thank you so much for sharing all your information.