[Sca-cooks] Southern Cornbread

[Edouard de Bruyerecourt]

> "EdB" commented:
>> Normally, I use a similar Pyrex pan, but
>> this time around, the oven decided to go on holiday early, and I
>> managed to
>> do it in a cast iron Dutch oven on the stove top. Aside from the
>> location of
>> the pot, I pretty much followed my usual steps.
> I thought cornbread cooked this way needed to be baked. Or did enough
> heat get conducted from the bottom, around the sides and then to the
> top so that the cornbread was surrounded by heat, so that the cornbread
>  was baked as opposed to cooked as on a griddle? I thought when you
> cooked in dutch ovens, at least over open fires, that you added hot
> coals to the top to provide heat on all sides. Perhaps cornbread
> doesn't need as high a heat as other items such as pies or roasts?

The particular Dutch oven I used does not have the flat, rimmed lid for
holding coals. I gradually warmed up the Dutch oven with my oven thermometer
inside until I reached the same 400-450 F temp that I would have used inside
the range oven. Melted the clarified butter into it, swabbed the sides, and
then poured the batter into the hot Dutch oven. I did, when it was mostly
done on the top, flip out the cornbread onto a cutting board and placed it
back inside, upside down, to finish the top more. The bottom was a shade
more brown than I might have prefered, suggesting a slightly lower temp next
time. As far as I know, the mass and thermal conductivity of the cast iron
provided the nessessary heat around the sides and over the top of the
cornbread (the lid stayed on the whole time).

EdB