Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale. On this episode of Laura in the Kitchen, I am going to show you how to make
the ultimate corn bread. It's very easy to make and I am going to show you what I think is absolutely crucial
to making the perfect corn bread. Now before we get started, let's get all the ingredients.
We're going to need some all purpose flour, some yellow corn meal, butter milk, whole milk, eggs,
plain old sugar, unsalted butter that's been melted, some baking powder, salt, baking soda, and some vegetable shortening.
Now you can make this cornbread in a say 9 x 9 square baking dish, you can make in in a 9 inch
sort of round cake pan. You can make this in little muffin tins to have cornbread muffins
But I think the absolute best way to make cornbread is on a cast iron skillet. I love the way is comes out in a
cast iron skillet and to me there's just like no substituting it. I mean it is what it is.
It gives it this really crispy and delicious and what I got here is: this is like a 9.5 inch cast iron skillet that I'm
preheating here on the stove on medium high heat and I'm going to let that pre heat until it gets really nice and hot
and you also wanna make sure your oven's pre heated to 375. So while that's happening, let's get going to making
the actual batter. In this big bowl, I'm going to add in my flour, corn meal, sugar and I know it sounds odd but if
you've ever made cornbread before, it's gotta have some sugar in it. I've been making cornbread for a long time
and it has been taking me quite a bit of time to get like sort of all the measurements perfected because
It's something that you have to constantly keep trying til you get it to your desired texture and sweetness and all that
So if this is a little too sweet for you next time use a little less sugar. It's that simple so that's it.
Get that and set that aside. You've got all your dry ingredients there. In this big bowl, well this is acutally a jug
I'm gonna put in some buttermilk
Which I made myself. Which is whole milk and vinegar. Regular whole milk, eggs, unsalted butter that's been melted
And just gonna give this a head start before I add it to the dry ingredients. Now just going to...
Pour the wet into the dry. I'm gonna switch to the little mixer here and mix it until everything is really nice and combined
but just mix it long enough for the batter to be you know pulled together but don't overmix it
Awesome! Okay now you're going to need vegetable shortening. This is vegetable shortening not lard
And this is crucial to get that sort of crispy bottom and all around bits that I think is just the best part of cornbread. But hey
What do I know? So this is going to go into a really hot cast iron skillet and your just need to make sure this is all nice and melted
Once that's all melted, pour your batter right in
And I know it looks like there's a lot of vegetable shortening there. I mean it's only like a 1/4 of a cup but still
Gonna be delicious! Ok! Now this bad boy is gonna go into your oven that has been preheating to 375
for about 20 to 25 minutes or until it's golden brown and I'll show you how it looks like once it's done and it cools a little bit just enough to handle
My cornbread baked for about 25 minutes and I let it cool quite a bit because that cast iron skillet was
extremely, extremely hot and I didn't wanna mess with it until it was cool enough for me to handle and feel comfortable around
My cornbread is just like. It's perfection. I mean look how puffy and beautifully golden brown it is. Gonna have to cut a slice right now for myself
Oh! So Yummy!
And I'm going to serve some tonight
And then I'm going to save some to make some cornbread stuffing which is so delicious yet so ridiculously easy
Which I can't wait to share the recipe with you. Look at that cornbread! Mmmm!
That crispyness around the edges
That my friend
Could win awards. Mmm!
And that's about it. I hope you enjoyed spending time with me. You NEED to get this recipe if you love cornbread
I guarantee it. It is a totally fullproof recipe that you're going to go to time and time again
To get it got to LauraInTheKitchen.com. I hope you've enjoyed spending time with me and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye!