A couple of Sundays ago I visited a dear friend. She’s special to me for many reasons – the first of which was quite obvious at the outset: we both love food. And what makes her even more special? She’s a Southern girl! At any rate, on Sunday we celebrated her latest achievement in life – pregnancy! I made her some simply delicious and comforting cornbread sticks (I think baby was happy). Folks, this recipe is not for the faint hearted (or for vegetarians for that matter). This is not the sweet “cornbread” that Boston Market (or something of the sort) serves. Rather, these are Mimi’s cornbread sticks, also known as authentic cornbread. Simple, savory, and sacred.
Recipe
1 cup of white water ground corn meal
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3/8 teaspoon of baking soda
2 Tablespoons of fat (bacon fat!!!)
1 Cup of Buttermilk
1 Egg
Instructions:
I preface these instructions with the statement that you can use either use cast-iron corn bread pans or a cast-iron skillet. I personally love making them in my cornbread stick pans just like Mimi did (thanks to my love for the pans). You can make a slit right down the middle of the long stick which is perfect for inserting the condiment of your choice (butter for some, but for me it’s homemade hot pepper jelly). But either type of pan is fine!
Preheat your oven at 425 with the cast-iron skillet (be it corn bread pans, or skillet) in the over. Meanwhile, mix the dry ingredients.
Then add the buttermilk and egg and mix – but don’t over mix. It’s OK if the mixture has a few clumps. Once the pans are HOT, pull them out of the oven and pour a half of a spoonful of hot bacon grease in the pan and spread around. Spoon the batter into hot greased pan. In fact, it should be hot enough that you hear the batter sizzle in the pan as if its frying in the bacon grease. Then put the pan (s) in the oven to cook for 10-15 minutes. The bread tends to cook fast on the bottom. If you feel like it’s not quite done, but getting too dark on the bottom, you can flip it over. This recipe should fill two corn bread stick pans, or one skillet. Remember, these are not supposed to taste sweet. They are very plain and very delicious!
Cooked bacon, in order to use bacon grease
Dry ingredients
Dry and wet ingredients
Raw batter in HOT pan, greased with bacon grease
Baked cornbread sticks still in the hot pan
Cooked cornbread sticks
Jenny
Rachael
These look delish!!!! I want to make them!!
You should try them for Easter! I think I heard that you can buy cast iron pans at the sporting goods store in Tallahassee for a reasonable price.
I love to cook too, and I’m from the South as well! I knew I liked you for a reason. Hope all is well.
Hi Tiffany!
So glad you read this one. I knew I liked you too! Feel free to email me any of your favs. I would love to try them. I hope you are well.
Baby-to-be absolutely loved them!!! Thank you my dear friend
And thank you for being you!!!! So glad you and baby enjoyed!!!
Mmmm…..I am fortunate enough to have had these before at your house! Think I am going to have to finally invest in the pans, like any good Southern woman should do!
Happy Easter!
Check out Peppercorn my friend! That’s where Mike bought mine!
Oh Rach…What a GREAT blog on Mimi’s corn bread sticks. They look sooooo good, and I’m soooooo hungry! I’ll be making these soon
Love to you and Jenny, Mags~
So glad you like!!!!! Now that I have that Bradley’s cornmeal, maybe they will be even better!
Great pics, Rach! Love the one of the finished sticks in the pan. My favorite is to slit these right down the middle while they’re piping hot and put on some homemade pepper jelly. SO good.
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[...] month in the year). Happily, this goal isn’t hard to attain. Mimi also served her famous cornbread as a sopping accessory (with jalapeno or strawberry jam) as well as fresh scallions to gnaw [...]