sistawendy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistawendy) wrote2021-02-06 05:41 pm
sistawendy) wrote2021-02-06 05:41 pm
Entry tags:
a culinary misadventure
Every Thursday over the noon hour since not long after the pandemic started, I've been baking cornbread. This past Thursday, however, I must have been trying to do too many things at once. After I got the batter all mixed up and poured into my iron skillet*, I realized that I'd forgotten to turn on the oven.
And so the batter sat there for the fifteen or twenty minutes that it took the oven to heat up to 425°F. When I put the skillet in the oven, I could see that the batter had separated a little bit: I could see more of the melted butter than usual around the edges.
When the cornbread was done in another twenty minutes, I observed the following:
Yes, I just ate the last of it.
*A cast iron skillet is the only proper vessel for baking cornbread. Period.
And so the batter sat there for the fifteen or twenty minutes that it took the oven to heat up to 425°F. When I put the skillet in the oven, I could see that the batter had separated a little bit: I could see more of the melted butter than usual around the edges.
When the cornbread was done in another twenty minutes, I observed the following:
- It was a lot denser than usual, almost polenta-like.
- The flavor was a little bit unpleasantly tangy. The recipe calls for baking soda for leavening and, in the absence of buttermilk, some vinegar to sour ordinary milk. I'm honestly not sure which one of those two I was tasting, but it was one of them.
- I had absolutely no problem with cornbread sticking to the skillet, as I often do. It was as if, during separation, the melted butter had gone to the bottom of the pan instead of to the top as I would have expected.
Yes, I just ate the last of it.
*A cast iron skillet is the only proper vessel for baking cornbread. Period.