Mom's cornbread

We all fight over the corner pieces!

  I grew up in a home where breakfast and dinner were served at the table DAILY. No excuses. NO rushing. We were expected to sit and visit with the family. My mother made GREAT dinners, protein, two veggies, salad and a starch. We never knew what was coming our way with the exception of Sunday Lunch. 
  Sunday Lunch...I can still smell my mother's roast cooking. My sister and I woke up to that wonderful fragrance every Sunday. Our father is a Baptist minister, so off to church every Sunday we did go. Mom started the roast as soon as she woke up. She added potatoes, carrots and onions along with the roast into her Dutch Oven, set it on low and left it to cook. When we came in from church, lunch was ready to eat with the exception of mom's cornbread.

Adding buttermilk and egg to dry ingredients.

  Mom's Cornbread tasted like no other cornbread we had ever eaten before. She baked her cornbread in an old iron skillet. Mom had several iron skillets. One for frying chicken. One for cooking eggs, any style. One for Christmas candy. And one for cornbread. As my mother would say, all of her iron skillets were seasoned and "slick as snot". Yes. You read it correctly...slick as snot. I own three iron skillets, only one being at the "slick as snot" stage. Mom's cornbread is the best, soft and light on the inside with an ever so slight crunch to the crust. This is mom's recipes. Try it, I promise it will become one of your families favorites.

Pouring hot oil into cornbread batter.

  Pour 2 tblsp. of vegetable oil into your slickest black iron skillet and place in the oven. Turn the oven to 425 degrees. 
 1 1/2 cups cornmeal, I use 3/4c.   yellow and 3/4 c.white
1/4 cup flour
2 tblsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 large egg

Pouring cornbread mixture into HOT skillet.

Measure dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl, stir together. Set aside. In a measuring cup add 2 cups buttermilk, crack your egg into the buttermilk. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. When your oven reaches 425 degrees, carefully, using several pot holders, pull out your skillet, and close the oven door. Pour the hot oil into your cornbread batter. Set your HOT skillet on a hot pad. Stir the oil into your cornbread batter, just until mixed in and immediately pour cornbread mixture into the skillet. It should "sizzle"...the sign of good cornbread. Bake at 425 for 20 minutes. 

Cornbread, hot out of the oven.

Remove from oven and invert onto serving platter. So yummy right out of the oven!
Enjoy. The true test of a well seasoned skillet is whether or not your corn bread pops right out of the pan...Good Luck and Happy Baking.