Old Fashion Corn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, combine cornmeal and salt.
Add lard and pour in boiling water to wet the meal.
Mix in a little sweet milk until combined.
Shape and bake
Shape the mixture into pounds and place them on a baking sheet.
Bake until golden brown.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the bread and gives it its corn flavor and crumbly structure.
- Lard
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel in the finished bread.
- Boiling water
- Hydrates the cornmeal and softens the starch so the mixture can be shaped.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and softness, helping the mixture bind and brown evenly.
The step that matters
Wet the meal with boiling water. Boiling water gelatinizes the starch in the cornmeal, so the mixture holds together when shaped. Too little water leaves it crumbly and dry, while the mixture must be moist enough to shape without falling apart.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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