Carole’s Golden Corn Bread

I recently mentioned that I’m in the midst of a long-term project of transcribing, organizing, and annotating the recipes of my people—in a broad sense: from family, elders, friends, and from midcentury potluck recipes, church-lady recipes, recipes in well-worn cookbooks, marked with stars and garnished with splatters. Recipes scrawled on the backs of envelopes; recipes passed among friends and passed down through generations. Recipes on tan, antique paper, with the edges crumbling away. It’s my own way of passing them along.

The present recipe is one from my aunt Carole Schroeder’s collection. It’s one of four cornbread formulas I’ve accumulated (so far). I recently shared my grandma Renner’s cornbread recipe.

Carole’s recipe card, which I photographed, is in her husband, Richard’s handwriting: it was probably a big favorite of his. Aunt Carole had put the card into a plastic sleeve to protect it. Probably, it was a favorite of the whole family!

Aunt Carole is a master of fantastic soups. Often when we’d visit, she’d serve bowls of delicious homemade soup, plus all sorts of lovely nibbles alongside: crackers, bits of cheese or a spread, like her homemade hummus or pesto, plus fruits and veggies. She’d make these soups “by feel,” using what she had on hand. For example, she’d make a chicken soup inspired by southeast Asian flavors (I’m thinking lime and ginger), with vegetables and some cilantro from her garden.

This cornbread would be especially good beside bowls of chili, bean soup, split pea soup, or lentil soup. These days, I enjoy cornbread with breakfast: fried eggs, bacon or ham, or cooked tomatoes, or cooked greens.

This is a perfect straight-up cornbread. It strikes a balance between the southern and northern styles. It is not especially sweet, fluffy, and cakelike, but neither is it dense and entirely lacking in sweetness.

When you are evaluating cornbread recipes, look for ratios of flour to cornmeal, and the amount of sugar. “Northern” recipes use ample flour and sugar, producing a tender, cakelike bread that almost falls apart—lovely in its own way. “Southern” recipes, with proportionately more cornmeal, are much denser, approaching polenta, with only enough added sugar to ensure the sweetness of the cornmeal comes through. They are hearty and perfect for crumbling onto your plate and ladling soup beans and cooked greens, and their delicious juices onto.

I think this cornbread is what Jiffy cornbread mix would be like if it backed down on the sweetening and the factory ingredients, and if it was moister and tasted more purely of cornmeal. What’s not to like?

Provenance: Knowing that Aunt Carole used the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book (revised edition, 22d printing of the De Luxe Edition), I looked it up in my copy of that edition (the 11th printing, inherited from Grandma Schroeder), and there it is exactly: chapter 6, page 16, right above the recipe for “Southern Spoon Bread” and below the one for “Blueberry Buckle.”

So this is not some original, heirloom recipe that was passed down in Carole’s family, unless her mom had the cookbook (which is a real possibility; Grandma Schroeder, of Mrs. Schreen’s same vintage, had the book). To say that the Better Homes and Gardens De Luxe edition served generations of American cooks is a massive understatement. Those recipes are still being used today . . . as in this case.

Reflecting on recipes like this . . . so, it’s from a book, but it’s a classic worth passing along. Put a star by it. Its ease of preparation frees up mental space for more creative dishes, like Carole’s wonderful, creative soups, or a perfect pot of chili.

My only tips are that I use a Pyrex dish, and I just spray it with Pam instead of fussily lining it with waxed paper. I like larger hunks of cornbread, so for me it makes nine pieces, not sixteen. Also, my antique oven runs hot, so I set it slightly lower, at 375°, and start checking it at 12 minutes. (You know . . . experience; know your oven.)

• 1 cup flour
• 1 t. salt
• 3 t. baking powder
• 2 T. sugar
• ¾ c. yellow corn meal
• 2 well beaten eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ¼ cup melted shortening

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar; mix with corn meal. Combine eggs, milk, and shortening; add to dry ingredients; stir just until moistened. Bake in waxed-paper-lined 9-inch square pan in moderately hot oven (400°) about 20 minutes. Makes 16 squares.

Grandma Renner's Southern Cornbread

My grandma Clara Renner’s recipe, as my mom typed into her own recipe notebook. Mom said that her Grandma made cornbread frequently.

As usual, although this post is about food, it is also about the connection: my grandma. Therefore, I’m sprinkling in some photos of her, taken by Mom in the 1950s.

A note on the photos: About fifteen years ago, Mom diligently digitized her old slides, but she didn’t clean the slides before scanning. So there are zillions of unfortunate specks and spots. Sue color-corrected some of them for me, but others still retain a pinkish red color shift. She did all she could. Sorry about that.

Better to have imperfect pictures than none at all. Sometimes soft photos have a perfection all their own, you know?

Grandma was born in Kansas and grew up in Washington, Missouri. From the time she was a teen and throughout her adult life, she lived in Jefferson City. She worked hard, raising four children and taking care of her husband and his father during the Great Depression and then World War II. Grandpa worked at the local printing company.

Like I said, Grandma worked hard. She had a garden, she raised rabbits for cash, she took in laundry and ironing for cash. She had to hide her grocery money from Grandpa. (I didn’t learn about Grandpa’s depression and drinking problems until long after he had died.)

Grandma had German heritage; her dad’s grandfather had immigrated to America in 1858, and her mom’s mother had been born in Germany, too. She grew up speaking German in the Lutheran church she attended. (If you struggled to learn the Lutheran Catechism, just imagine learning it in German!)

Unlike my other grandma, who was the daughter of German immigrants, Grandma Renner seemed much less Germanic. Culturally, she was more rural, or more Americanized. Grandma Schroeder would make split pea soup served with rye bread, and Grandma Renner would make ham and bean soup served with cornbread. At Christmas, Grandma Schroeder would make sauerbraten; Grandma Renner would make roast chicken (or turkey, though she greatly preferred chicken) . . . or a plain pot roast.

Or she would grill steaks out in the backyard, basting it with homemade BBQ sauce.

So, I find it interesting that she’d have a recipe for southern cornbread: southern. Most people would just call their cornbread “cornbread,” right?

Therefore, we need to talk about southern cornbread.

First, the sugar. Always the sugar, with those southerners. Can’t have too much of it in the iced tea, but can’t have a speck of it in their cornbread.

There’s a lot made out of the idea that “true” southerners never, ever, ever include sugar with their cornbread. But then, many southerners “admit” that they use “just a titch” of sugar.

Grandma’s recipe includes one tablespoon of sugar for four cups of corn meal and flour. That’s not very much.

I think it’s reasonable to include a small amount of sugar with cornbread in order to correct deficiencies in the sweetness of the cornmeal being used. If it’s super fresh and high quality, it’s probably sweet enough on its own. But if your cornmeal sits around on your shelf, or if it’s been in a warehouse for who knows how long, it might need a little help. In fact, what you bought at the grocery store probably does need a little help.

The overall idea, however, is that southern cornbread is not obviously sweet; it shouldn’t be like cake; it should be sweet only in the sense that corn itself is sweet. It’s a lot like adding a small amount of sugar to a tomato sauce.

Another southern thing is to make cornbread in a cast iron skillet. The old-fashioned technique is to preheat your oven, then heat your well-seasoned iron skillet on the stovetop, mix your batter, dollop some butter or lard into the skillet (which is so hot it immediately starts to sizzle), and right after that, put your batter into the skillet; it sizzles instantly. Then you transfer it into the oven to finish. This way, it develops a buttery, crisp, golden crust on the bottom, which you can make the top by inverting it upside-down onto a serving plate. Or serve out of the skillet, as you prefer.

But I’ll bet my grandma didn’t fuss with that. She wasn’t a southerner, anyway. For goodness’ sakes, her immigrant grandpa had served in the Union Army from 1861 to the end of 1864. And she was a modern midwestern homemaker. I bet she made it in a cake pan or a baking dish, in the oven.

So, what’s better, northern or southern cornbread? Southerners apparently see it in black-and-white: southern style is best, doggone it! Meanwhile, northerners usually don’t get so het up over it.

Me, I prefer to have all the colors in my coloring book. I like both the sweet kind and the unsweet kind. I like cornbread with blueberries, cheese, jalapenos, peanut butter, jam or jelly, split and toasted with butter and caraway (or poppy) seeds—you name it.

And I like corn griddlecakes with sorghum molasses!

As always, I have some comments on the recipe:

First, with its 3-to-1 ratio of cornmeal to flour, it will be dense and rather dry, not delicate and cakelike as in northern cornbread. Cracks will develop on the top, like the Dry Tortugas, or the Nevada Proving Grounds. . . . Rub some butter on the top surface.

This is perfect for crumbling into a bowl and topping with cooked beans and their juices, or with bean soup, or with thin, soupy chili.

As with most quick breads and muffins, mix the drys and wets separately, first; then combine them together.

Grandma’s recipe doesn’t give a pan size, precise temperature, or baking time. I use a 9 x 13 Pyrex baking dish, set the oven at 425 degrees, and start checking it at around 12 minutes; it’s done when it starts turning golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

• 3 cups cornmeal
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 heaping teaspoons baking powder
• 3 or 4 eggs
• 2 cups sweet milk
• 1 tablespoon lard [melted, surely; or melted butter or vegetable oil]

Mix all together and bake in hot oven.