The Fresh Loaf

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Charlie's Cornbread

Anonymous baker's picture
Anonymous baker (not verified)

Charlie's Cornbread

This is a moist, sweet cornbread similar to those made from Louisiana to North Carolina. You'll find it served with just about everything, like Chicken & Butter Beans or Red Beans & Rice.

To make a classic Cajun breakfast cereal known as 'couche-couche' (pronounced 'coosh-coosh'), crumble some in a bowl and pour warm milk (or café au lait) over it. I prefer to heat the cornbread and then pour ice-cold milk over it, but that's just me.

If you like your cornbread dry and savory, like those made in Texas and the American Southwest, this is not it.

FORMULA.

PROCEDURE.

 - Preheat oven to 400° F (204° C).
 - Melt butter.
 - Whisk dry ingredients together until just combined.
 - Add all other ingredients (including melted butter) and mix until just combined.
 - Portion (~800 grams/pan) into 4 buttered (8.5 x 4.5 inch [21.5 x 11.5 cm]) loaf pans.
 - Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

IMAGES.

Image 1. Not my photograph, but result looks just like this. Source. Elly Says Opa.

FILES.

  1. The formula in an Excel 2007 spreadsheet. (File can be opened with Google Docs, Open Office, etc.).
  2. The formula in PDF format.
  3. The detailed process in text format.

SOURCE.

I don't remember where I found this recipe, but I've tweaked it so much over the years that it might as well be my own. I think it was called Charlie's Cornbread, so that's what I'll call it. Charlie, if you're out there, thank you for the original recipe.

Comments

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

With so much sugar, eggs and butter this must be a southern favorite.  It's not Charlies Cornbread though - for kids its got to be called Crack Cornbread :-)

After watching 'The Video' Eric suggested in the GMO thread I'm swearing off crack as a poisonous toxin.

thomaschacon's picture
thomaschacon (not verified)

It turns out it was.

If I want a cornbread like my grandmother used to make, I make this one.

It's a lot of sugar, but then I only eat a slice or two (and enjoy every morsel).

-

I wouldn't take Lustig's video to be incontrovertible science (as if such a thing even exists). There've been many critics of his research since that video went viral. It's also helpful to remember that Lustig is a member of the American academic establishment, where your career and reputation are set once you create "the idea". Once that idea gains traction, it takes on a life of its own (that may or may have value for those who embrace it). See Jonah Lehrer's "The Truth Wears Off".

I'd wager his grant proposals have gone from 100 pages to a phone call by now.

I'll stick with Julia Child's formula: anything and everything in moderation. Alas, she was her own worst critic: She also said, "A balanced diet is a cookie in both hands!"

pmccool's picture
pmccool

And as a Yankee (well, there was that 4-year period in Birmingham, Alabama, when I was a damyankee), I ought to know.  A Yankee puts sugar in his cornbread but not in his iced tea.  A Southerner puts sugar in his iced tea but not in his cornbread (which is typically baked in a cast-iron skillet). 

Let's not even get into the mayonnaise / Miracle Whip debate.

Paul

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

aren't upset we lost the war but we are upset with the 146 year occupation the Yankees have imposed on us poor defenseless folks :-) 

thomaschacon's picture
thomaschacon (not verified)

Alas, Louisiana is not really the South, south though it is. It's an island onto itself where we grow the sugar cane ourselves and put it in everything–even the cornbread, I'd swear it on a stack o' Bibles (if I had a stack)!

(Alas, could be yet another one of my grandmother's ploys in the Great Feud (she vs. my Mom) wherein she'd fill her grandchildren full of very, very sweet "coffee-milk" (cafe au lait with sugar) and coconut cake and send us back home to raise hell for Mom. The Civil War had nothing on the Great Feud.)

I might have to correct the intro: This is a moist, sweet cornbread similar to those made from in Louisiana Cajun Country to North Carolina.

thomaschacon's picture
thomaschacon (not verified)

:D