Tuesday, August 4, 2009

I love cornbread…



From the 1908 edition of The Boston Cooking School Cook Book by Fannie Merritt Farmer.
This cook book belonged to my Great Aunt Susanne, a domestic cook for a wealthy family in Manhattan. All her menu notes & favorite recipes are marked in the margins.

Rich Corn Cake
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup white flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
7/8 cup milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter

Mix & sift together dry ingredients. Add milk, gradually, eggs well beaten, & melted butter. Bake in a buttered, shallow pan, in a hot oven.

OK, I whisked the dry ingredients together, substituting brown sugar for white. I also mixed the milk eggs & melted butter together before adding to the dry ingredients. This is how I've always made cornbread. At the urging of the massage therapist from my Mom's hospice program, I also added 3/4 cup of semi-sweet, mini-chocolate chips, mixed into the dry ingredients. (Thanks Fiamma!) I used a 9" round cake pan. What is a "hot" oven? 425°F. Bake for 20 ~25 minutes.

This is really simple & tasty. The chocolate chips were something I never would have thought of but how can you go wrong with chocolate.

5 comments:

Yvonne said...

Oh my god, are those blueberries?

Are you TRYNA make me cry? Are ya?

(Please tell me you're not a "There's no sugar in cornbread!!"-snob, especially if you're going to go putting blueberries in it to make me extra hungry.)

Yvonne said...

Oops -- my blueberry comment came after you'd posted the photo but before you added the recipe.

I should warn you that there seems to be a whole army of Southerners who do nothing but roam the internet, looking for cornbread recipes: if a recipe calls for sugar, they post angry comments about it. They seem pretty harmless...but who knows how they'll react if they come across a recipe with, y'know, ocolate-chay ips-chay.

Anyway, it does sound good.

It must be fascinating to read your great-aunt's notes in that cookbook!

RomanHans said...

Yvonne, I thought they were raisins. Which are God's way of saying, "Roman, stay away from that food."

I'll reserve judgment until I try a slice. Can you mail it or do I need to pick it up?

Anonymous said...

I love your homemade pecan pie much better. What I wouldn't give for a piece of it now.

MissFifi said...

that looks yummy!! I have to make your Aunt's recipe