Southern Style Cornbread

I know several people who cannot eat gluten, and every time I tell them my cornbread is safe for them to eat they inevitably ask for the recipe. Because, they tell me, they have been looking for a good gluten-free cornbread recipe. Then I drop a culinary bomb on them, any true southern style cornbread should not contain flour! It's all cornmeal. Somewhere along the way someone decided to start adding wheat flour to cornbread, probably because it made for a lighter consistency in the store bought mixes. But honey, if you do it right, it will have a light consistency, along with a deep crust on the bottom.
So grab some of your grandma's jelly, some honey butter, or a big bowl of chili. Cause we're making cornbread.

Step 1

1/3 cup yellow Cornmeal
1/3 cup rapidly boiling Water
3/4 cup Buttermilk
1 large Egg

Pre-heat oven to 450.
Cornbread is traditionally made in a cast iron skillet and if you have one you should definitely use it. But I understand that most people don't have one (I don't understand why they don't, but whatever). A good substitute is a stoneware casserole dish. The stoneware can be preheated in the oven so that the cornbread starts cooking the moment it hits the hot dish.
If using stoneware or a cast iron skillet- Use an 8" skillet or an 8x8 baking pan. Place the empty pan into the oven to preheat.
First thing we're gonna do here is make a mush, which is just hot water and cornmeal mixed. This pre-soaking of part of the cornmeal brings out the corn flavor and adds a smooth consistency to go along with the slightly grainier consistency of the non-soaked cornmeal that will go in later.
In a medium bowl combine the cornmeal and water. Rapidly boiling means that you get it to a good rolling boil then immediately dump it in with the corn meal.
Stir to create a stiff mush, the mush should not be so stiff that is is hard to stir. If that happens, add a few tablespoons of boiling water until mush is slightly loose. Let sit for a few minutes to cool down.

Once the mush has cooled enough that you can touch it, beat in the egg until smooth. Then stir in the buttermilk.

Step 2

2/3 yellow Cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon Baking Soda

Combine dry ingredients in a smaller bowl.

Step 3

Before combining the dry with the wet, we need to finish prepping the pan we are cooking this in.
If using Stoneware or Cast Iron- Pull out the oven rack the pan is on. Carefully pour 2 Tablespoons of cooking oil into pan and spread around using a silicon pastry brush, be sure to get up the sides too. If you don't have a brush, a spatula or even a bunched up paper towel will work. Slide rack back into oven and close the door. Let the oil heat for 1 minute.

If you happen to have some bacon grease lying around, then you should definitely use that.
If you are using a regular metal pan- Pour the oil into the cool pan, then place in preheated oven for 5 minutes, or until oil is smoking.
If you are using a glass casserole dish then you should not preheat it. Just grease it up with the oil, pour the batter in and then put it in the oven. If you try to pour cold batter into a hot glass dish you will end up with a broken glass dish and batter dripping all over your oven.
While pan finishes preheating, pour the dry ingredients onto the wet.

Whisk until fully combined.

The wet and dry are combined at the last minute because as soon as the dry ingredients hit the buttermilk, the leavening agents start to do their thing. Unlike yeast, baking soda and baking powder will only work for so long. To get the lightest and fluffiest cornbread, you want to start cooking it right away so that the leavening is working at full strength until the bread is cooked and all those air bubbles are locked into place.
So once your batter is mixed, immediately take it to the oven. Pull out the rack the pan is on and pour all of the batter into the pan. You should hear the batter start to sizzle as soon as it hits the pan. Unless you are using a glass dish, then you're not going to hear anything. It will be disappointingly quiet.
Slide the rack back into place, close the oven door, and bake for about 20 minutes. The top of the bread should be a nice golden brown, and a toothpick or knife should come out clean when inserted into the center of the bread.

Allow to cool for about 20 minutes. Then run a knife around the edge of the pan and flip the bread out onto a cutting board.
The bottom of the bread will be a dark brown and nice and crunchy.

Oh, yeah.
Sop there you have it, the best damn cornbread you will ever have. Unless you get someones Southern grandma to make you some.
Y'all come back now, ya hear!
~Julia