Dixie Cornbread (Go Dawgs!)
I got an email from a reader, Terri (Who is originally from Georgia -Go Dawgs!) telling me she made world famous cornbread. I was intrigued.
Then she told me that her husband said she made better cornbread than his MAMA. I was stunned.
THEN she told me that her cornbread recipe included TWO CUPS OF BUTTERMILK. My jaw was hanging open.
I had to try this. She offered the recipe (on accounta she’s so nice!) and of course I said yes (on accounta I do NOT make it a habit to turn down world famous recipes of cornbread that include two cups of buttermilk and make husbands turn on their Mamas).
It took her a week or so to get it to me and I have to admit I was getting kind of worried that she may have decided to keep it a secret after all. When I did finally get it, Terri (Go Dawgs!) and I had us a bit of an OMG moment. It turns out the very cookbook she got this from, which is a rare one printed in the seventies, just happened to be the very same cookbook I was laying in bed leafing through as her email came through on my iphone. Spooky or Fate? After having been fortunate enough to get to know Terri (Go Dawgs!) through email, I can definitely say it was the latter.
Let me tell you my personal experience with this cornbread :EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY GOBBLED IT DOWN. That may not seem like that big a deal until I tell you that up until I made this, cornbread had not ever passed the lips of either of my children (they are weird). My husband (whom I’ve mentioned before must have been dropped on his head as a child because of his extremely strange aversions to some staple southern dishes despite having been born and raised just outside of Atlanta) even ate a rather large piece and came back for seconds.
I have never had cornbread so moist in all of my born days. I am flabbergasted and feel certain that no small amount of my existance has been wasted up until tasting this. My in laws are coming to visit this weekend from Georgia (Go Dawgs!) and I plan on having this in the oven when they pull in the driveway.
It feels awful good to be able to grant meaning to the lives of others simply by making cornbread. ~grins~
So without further fuss (On accounta I don’t want to stand between you and this cornbread, because standing in between anyone and THIS cornbread is NOT a safe place to be), here is Terri’s (Go Dawgs!) Dixie Cornbread!
You’ll need: White corn meal, buttermilk (Or put a tablespoon of lemon juice in whole milk and just don’t tell anyone you did that!), an egg, baking soda, flour, salt, and…bacon grease.
We might have just lost some of you on that one! Southerners reading this just had their mouths set to watering, but if you aren’t from here you might not feel so fondly about the thought of using bacon grease in cooking. You might not even look so fondly on my little mason jar of collected bacon grease. Hey, we all have them. Go to any Southerner’s house that actually cooks and look around. You’ll likely see an old soup can on their stove or a little grease jar with a lid. Open it up, Bacon Grease.
Oh alright, if you just really can’t manage bacon grease, you can use melted butter in place of it, but try to do better next time, okay?
Preheat oven to 450. Slather a cast iron skillet with Vegetable Shortening (Crisco). If you really want to make this and don’t have a cast iron skillet, you can use a cake pan. Do this same thing with it.
Stick skillet (or pan) in oven while it preheats so it will be good and hot.
Whisk your corn meal, flour, baking soda and salt together in a bowl.
Add melted bacon grease, or melted butter for the faint of heart.
Add your egg…
And buttermilk.
(Yes, I actually bought buttermilk for this instead of using my usual shortcut of lemon juice to whole milk. Shocking, I know)
Like so. Now we’re going to stir it all up.
Until it looks like this.
Now get your hot skillet from the oven (Carefully) and pour the batter in. It should be hot enough that the batter sizzles when it comes into contact.
Place that back in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until you can’t stand the waiting anymore!
Twenty minutes was just agony.
To top it off, family members kept emerging from their respective holes and asking “What is that smell? When is it going to be ready?”
Remove from oven when you can’t take it anymore….
Turn it out onto a plate. For this cornbread, I used one of my grandmother’s plates. It just seemed fittin’.
Eat it hot, with butter.
~grins~
Take a bite and see if you don’t yell out “Go Dawgs!”
DIXIE CORN BREAD
Preheat oven 450
1 1/2 cups enriched white cornmeal
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons of bacon drippin’s or melted real butter
1 tablespoon Crisco
In a 10-inch cast iron skillet, add a tablespoon of Crisco and preheat. Sift together dry ingredients; add buttermilk, egg, and drippings, mixing just until dry ingredients are moistened.
Pour into the greased, hot skillet. Bake in preheated hot oven at 450 for 20-25 minutes. Serve warm with butter.
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Posted by Christy Jordan
on Oct 1 2008. Filed under Breads, FEATURED Southern Favorites!, Southern Classics.
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[...] Dixie cornbread [...]
Make this cornbread even better by letting your mix sit for 30 minutes after you mix it all up and then add about 1/8 cup more buttermilk and stir right before you pour it into the hot greased cast iron skillet.
I MAKE A SIMILAR RECIPE BUT MY RULE IS ONE CUP SR MEAL TO ONE CUP BUTTERMILK TO ONE EGG. I ADD ABOUT THREE HEAPING TEASPOONS OF MAYONNAISE TO A DOUBLED RECIPE AS I USUALLY DO DOUBLE THE RECIPE. I MELT THE OIL IN AN IRON SKILLET IN OVEN AND WHEN IT IS HOT I POUR THE OIL IN THE SKILLET AND STIR QUICKLY TO BLEND. THE COMBO OF THE OIL AND THE MAYO MAKE A CAKE LIKE CORNBREAD THAT MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH. I BAKE IT (DOUBLE RECIPE) IN A 450 OVEN IN 10 INCH IRON SKILLET TIL BROWN. THEN I TAKE IT OUT AND INVERT IT ON A PLATE. WILL NOT STICK IF YOU HAVE KEPT YOUR SKILLET SEASONED WELL.
You make it just like I do. I work in the Gulf of Mexico in the oil fields, and all those “cooks” use Jiffy mix……YUCK!
Cornbread don’t have sugar in it!
And, well…at my house (‘causin’ of my cast iron skillet) Pie R round….cornbread R square.
Crisco? Use 3 tablespoons of bacon grease. Or 2 1/2 if some yankee is watching you. Put all the bacon grease in the skillet and stick it in the oven and turn on the oven to pre-heat. Assemble all the ingredients in a bowl and stir together.
Now put one pot holder on the counter and use another to pull the skillet out of the HOT oven. Pour most – but not all – of the grease into the bowl. Set down the skillet and stir that bowl just enough to mix in the grease.
Pour the whole thing into the skillet – there should be about 1 tbsp left in the skillet. The grease should sizzle as the mix goes in – that’s the secret of a crisp crust.
Sugar should NEVER be put into cornbread in the South – sacrilege!
And don’t be using a glass jar for the grease. That’s scary – the glass could shatter when you pour in the grease.
Do they still make those metal containers with filters for grease? I’ll bet they don’t anymore. I bought mine as a bride 35 years ago – still got it. Still use it.
Thanks for sharing this recipe.. But we all know that the GO DAWGS is for Ms State
Love you and Thank you much for all you do!
Marian
Hey Yawl!
Sumthin’ my Granny Thomas taught me was, if you want a moister and slightly denser consistincy, substitute 1/3 of your cornmeal with old fashioned Oats. The oats will dissapear in the final product, but the moisture content and a nuttier flavor are readily apparent!!
Oh Yea,
about the sugar, I married a Yankee gal and she thinks that “cornbread” only comes from the “Jiffy” boxes too, so, by way of compromise, I sometimes add either add either 1/4th cup dark brown sugar, “raw” sugar or even better, sorghum molasses to mine. The brown sugar gives it a sort of a smoky flavor.Its really is quite tasty even with beans or stew, and it is heavenly with cow salve butter and honey!
Thanks Bobby and everyone who gave their own tips about my Mama’s fav recipe for Dixie cornbread…..we all have our family traditions ~nods to moms/grannies of the past~. (Cathy…I often use bacon grease instead of Crisco too).
But, at my house, my honey pie hubby would trade me in for a new model if I changed this recipe one teensy bit. Now, we wouldn’t want that, would we ;} ? Happy Thanksgiving Christy and all the SP readers.
Well,
Mebbe not. But I double dawg dare ya to try the oatmeal trick…..=-) betcha cain’t tell by lookin!
But if’n you really wanna keep him close , stir in about a 1/2 cup of fresh cracklins into your batter once in a while……ahm jes sayin’….;-)
Ritalin online purchase….
Ritalin. Ritalin overdose. Why is ritalin over prescribed for adhd. Ritalin withdrawal. Ritalin side effects. Ritalin hydrochloride. Ritalin no prescription….
I just blogged about this delicious cornbread. I will be adding a post about the dressing very soon as well. Thanks for being a gastronomic part of my family’s Thanksgiving the 2nd year in a row.
I use the same ratio as Patti – 1 cup buttermilk/1 cup cornmeal/1 egg. Double this for a skillet full of cornbread. I do not add flour, but I use old fashioned stone ground fine white cornmeal (Dixie Mills brand which is milled in Tifton, GA and sold at Winn Dixie). Each cup of buttermilk requires 1/2 tsp baking soda, so that’s 1 tsp per batch. I use only 1/2 tsp salt, but 1 tsp is standard amount. I use the same method as Kathy, placing the skillet in the oven with the grease or oil (not butter) to preheat it; pouring the hot fat into the batter while stirring rapidly before pouring it into the hot skillet. The result will be moist, cohesive cornbread encased in a lovely, brown crust.
Christy, I wish you and your family a happy New Year! I am so thank-ful I came across this website (the southern plate). I am in Tennessee and grew up on cornbread and beans (we weren’t poor), but everyone has passed on already, and I never actually learned how to make cornbread from scratch (I know, shameful) so, I had alway’s used the Martha white cornbread mix in the bag and it was perfect. after reading all your reviews on your cornbread I decided to give it a try. I have to admit 2 cups of buttermilk sure did sound like a lot, but let me tell you this, I made the cornbread and it was absolutely the best ever! My husband didn’t want me to throw out the leftover. Can you eat leftover cornbread? anyways, I am so thrilled to have found your website. I would love to purchase your cookbook, but when I went to the link there was only information on the book, not anyway to order it. could you please tell me how I could order the new book? also, next I am going to try your chicken and dumplings recipe.
Hi Carol,
Thank you so much for saying this Dixie Cornbread is the best ever! I was just tickled pink!!! I was glad your husband loved it too. You were brave to try something you have never done before and the accomplishment and success must feel mighty fine too. Since Christy has to finish writing her new SP cookbook Feb. 1st, I thought I would help and answer your question about the leftover cornbread. Yes, leftover is fantastic, if you slice each serving piece long-ways from tip to crust, and lightly toast under a low broiler setting. We put butter on it and the light crunchiness makes us love it all over again.
The new Southern Plate Cookbook will be completely written by Feb. 1st and will be available for sale late summer or fall, I think Christy said. I promise, she has worked on the book so hard, she will be sure to let you know when and how to order copies. Her first cookbook sold out several times and is not available any more.
Be sure to join in the fun on Southern Plate’s Facebook page and keep up with all the action regarding creating Christy’s cookbook.
Till then, keep cookin’. Terri
psst, the ckn and dumplin’s are my favorite.
i have a question… i have Celiacs, and I’m trying to be more strict about following the rules (no wheat, rye, barley or oats… sob sob wah wah blah blah) –the basic rule, as i’ve come to realise is, if God made it, I can eat it. the corollary (ack! a math term!) is: If it tastes good, I can’t eat it.
I digress (so like me!)– can I use CORN FLOUR (not corn meal) in lieu of the AP Flour.
please please please please say yes, and I will promise to even buy real buttermilk!
Diane from Central FL
Hi Diane,
I was just looking at the comments and noticed some had questions. I sure hope you don’t mind that I try to help, since Christy is so busy looking at a Feb. 1st deadline for writing her new Southern Plate cookbook.
I am so sorry that you have Celiacs and salute your effort to keep your health by changing your ingredients. I see that Carole, two comments up from yours, might have the solution for you with just using cornmeal. Search the internet if you can’t get the cornmeal at your local stores, or ask a store manager to order some for you.
Good luck and let us hear how it turns out. ~crosses fingers~
Terri
Bacon grease is the spawn of the devil. And of course you HAVE to have it for good Southern cornbread! When I got married (back when the earth was still cooling), one of the kitchen items on my list was a grease keeper. It’s a small metal container with a filter and a lid. When I cook bacon, I pour the grease into the keeper. Everyone once in a while, I wipe the filter out, and about once a year, I dump the whole thing, put the keeper and parts in the dishwasher and then start collecting grease again.
I figured these had gone the way of dial telephones, but I saw one the other day! Mama kept hers on top of the stove and used a little every day, but I keep mine in the fridge.
For cornbread, I put 2 to 3 tablespoons of bacon grease in the iron skillet and put it in the pre-heating oven. Once I get the batter assembled and the oven is at the right temp, I pour all but about 1/2 tablespoon of grease into the batter and stir like heck. Then I pour the batter into the skillet. The batter sizzles as it oozes into the grease. That gives you a nice brown crust.
Daddy would crumble leftover cornbread into a glass of milk (or buttermilk) and eat it all with a spoon. My kids used to dip their nacho chips into the milk…sort of the same thing!
Oh, Cathy, you have me laughing at my memory of the little metal grease container you described, just like ours above our stove. That, and my Daddy’s favorite snack (or was it his dessert? ha ha) was the crumbled cornbread in a tall glass of buttermilk with a long tall ice tea spoon in it. Thanks for the walk down memory lane today.
Does anyone know if this will work in an 8 inch skillet before I go through the trouble just to find out it doesn’t?
thanks!
Hi Alicia. I feel certain that the amount of this recipe would be too much for the 8 inch skillet, as my 10 inch is perfect size for the batter without having it run over the edges. So, perhaps you can try just half of the batter amount in the 8 inch, and pour the second half in next for batch number two. It wouldn’t be as thick, but it gives you an option. That, or ask a loved one to give you a 10-inch cast iron skillet for your birthday. Let all us SP folks know how it turns out. Bye now.
Well, I was out of luck on borrowing a 10 inch skillet because nobody had one! Would you believe it?! And I put one on my birthday list, but that’s not until November…So I decided to try it anyways because I was just just dying to try this recipe! It turned out great! It was a little thicker than it was probably supposed to be but it tasted delicious, and we didn’t have leftovers!
I just bookmarked this, I’m a sucker for good cornbread. I’m allergic to dairy but I can add vinegar to my hemp milk and it will have a similar flavor to buttermilk.
I have to try this! I moved from Louisiana to Oklahoma almost 6 years ago. They cannot make cornbread here. It is always dry, has too much flour, and way too much sugar. My mother always added sugar, but not enough that you could tell. Thanks for the recipe.
John, I am jes’ waiting w/ baited breath to hear how it turns out for you! I sho’ hope it is THE fix for your cornbread hankerin’s. Now, go find that bacon grease and heat up your oven. ;}
Oh my stars… I cannot wait to try this cornbread. Making a good cornbread is one of the aspirations of my life. I always think “Oh if only I could make it as good as Cracker Barrel does.” LOL
Christy…. I just discovered your site a week ago and I’ve been printing recipes ever since. I’ve already made your strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting and your chicken planks. Both were absolutely delicious. This cornbread will be my next endeavor, and I’ve got a pile more I can’t wait to try.
I’m from South Georgia, and an avid cook. I’ve read so many of your recipes and thought “she does it just like I do!” LOL I feel like I’ve found a kindred kitchen spirit.
I’m ordering your cookbook, too. I read them like other people read novels.
Thanks for all the great recipes, the giggles and the memories your stories and recipes bring back for me. I’m a fan.
~Karen
I’m back! Just had to tell you that this is absolutely the best cornbread I have ever made, and some of the best I’ve ever put in my mouth.
I made the butterfinger cake, too. *swoons*
Thanks again for all the great recipes.
Oh… I’m making crockpot lasagna today. LOL
~Karen
Welcome new SP friend Karen to my favorite website too! Christy is the bee’s knees and I still have so many of her recipes to try too! It thrilled me to hear you agreed about this recipe for Dixie Cornbread being the best you ever tasted. Be sure to check out the recipes for Brady’s Monkey Bread, the Ckn Noodle Soup or Ckn & Dumplin’s, oh and Pecan Pie muffins mmmmm. So many to choose from, so little time. Hope the lasagna turned out great. ~waves to you~ See ya on SP facebook. T.
Bacon grease! My mom was very fond of bacon grease ’cause her mama was from Kentucky and no doubt used it a lot. I have used bacon grease in my cornmeal muffins which certainly elevates them to an all new level!~! I just don’t buy bacon that often. But I am intrigued by this recipe even though it doesn’t have suger in it. Being Canadian it’s all I’ve ever known and it certainly soothes my aching sweet tooth. Also I’ve never used white cornmeal and can’t say I’ve ever seen any but I will find some and try the recipe and also now have a perfectly good excuse for buying bacon…hee hee. Oh yeah gotta find a suitable ‘grease tin’. *grins*
If all else fails, use a soup can!
This recipe and a pot of peas and butterbeans ( mixed together) is a meal in itself! My baby looks in the oven, turns and says Oooo… my mama is making me cake.
[...] low, 7-8 hours or on high, 3-4. I serve mine with crackers, cheese, and sour cream. Goes great with cornbread! After I put this in the crock pot my son came up to me and put his arms around my waist and [...]
[...] more special, it includes two very special guests. The first is Terri, the reader who gave me the Dixie Cornbread recipe. For the other surprise guest (who is also a reader!) you’ll have to watch the [...]
[...] means Terri of Dixie Cornbread fame is gonna come visit [...]
I make “Southern” cornbread (no sugar) when my mama comes and visits and “Northern” cornbread (with sugar) for my family. My mama is originally from Tennessee (yes, we had a grease can on the stove!) and I now live in Nebraska ~ considered by a lot of Southerners to be Yankee territory instead of the Midwest!!
OK..I want to say THANK YOU Terry for this cornbread recipe!! I have never tried to make skillet cornbread before because all the ones I had tried were dry! Seeing that you used buttermilk in this recipe AND that it looked very easy to make, I decided to give it a try and BOY oh BOY…it is sooooooo good!! I even bought an new cast iron pan just for this recipe!! yep, I seasoned it beforehand…and my next use of it will be cream corn but as Christy says..that’s a whole other story!! I have more cornbread in the oven right now and making Christy’s crock pot chicken & dressing using your recipe!! Can’t wait!! thanks again Terry!!!!
Just found out today about your website and have enjoyed looking over all of your recipes. I am thrilled that you are using buttermilk in your cornbread. It seems that we just get use to eating what we grew up on. On another cooking website it seems that most people do not use buttermilk, but rather just plain milk. We have tried the plain milk and it is just not “what we grew up on”. Some people like sweet cornbread and that is fine, but we love just good old plain cornbread. Am looking forward to making this recipe tomorrow.
[...] I actually scrape the pan just to get all of the little bits in mine. Then, when I’m making cornbread and such I dip my spoon waaaaaaaaaaay down to the bottom so I have the yummy bits in my [...]
All these recipes made me get up and make chicken and dumplings and candied sweet potatoes. Do have a recipe for a chili sauce you put on peas and cornbread. My grandmother used to make it and it would be a brown color and smelled really good. She had a white metal cabinet she would store her canned goods in, and you could smell the aroma on the outside, it must have had a spice in them. It had peppers,onions,tomatoes, and the rest I do not know. Any recipe would be yummy. Thanks for sharing your recipes.
[...] and Auntie Beatrice, green beans, greens, fried okra, sweet potato casserole, fresh fried corn, cornbread, steak and gravy, biscuits with fresh apple butter and preserves, big old pot of pintos, chopped [...]
[...] My mother got this recipe out of a 1974 issue of Good Housekeeping. There was a photograph of a little old lady next to the title and Mama said “She just looked like her food would be really good”. Since then, I cannot even begin to tell you how often we make it. Everyone in my family makes this and loves it. My in laws are coming in from Georgia this weekend for the Tennessee Valley Old Time Fiddler’s Convention as they do every year and this stew is always a request for their first meal. Tonight I’m serving it with Dixie Cornbread. [...]
Cornbread has been my nemesis for my entire married life. It’s always too packy, too crumbly, too dry…etc. I have had to cheat and use Martha White (so embarrassing for a southern girl!) I’m so happy to report that your Dixie cornbread recipe was delicious! Moist in the middle, crispy on the outside. I’m thrilled, my family is relieved that they will not have to eat any more “experimental” recipes. Thanks so much!
I can’t not remember where I heard this, but try sprinkling a pinch of kosher salt over the hot grease just before you pour in the batter. it bakes into the crust and makes it so yummy!