Cornbread Take Two = Much Better!

If you'll remember, last week I posted about our first attempt at cornbread and how it was eh. Not great. Not terrible. This week as promised, we tried our second cornbread recipe. This was was so much better! It was much more cake-like and sweet. I did make some changes from the original recipe in that I used a 12 inch cast iron skillet which I pre-heated for 30 minutes to get a crisp crust. Also, before putting the batter in, I poured in 2 tbsp of melted butter per the Neely's recipe from last week. Because my pan was 4 inches bigger in diameter than the pan listed, I checked on the bread after 20 minutes instead of waiting out the 30-40 recommended. It was done and probably could have come out a few minutes sooner.

This week's bread wasn't without a few mishaps. I was geared up on Saturday morning to make this bread when Mr. called me from Whole Foods to tell me they were out of buttermilk. I threw a temper tantrum about how nothing is ever easy. (No, I am not adaptable when my mind is set. I mean I already had the skillet heating in the oven!) However, once I got my act together, I googled subsitutes for buttermilk and found that 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp of lemon juice would work. I called Mr. and he nicely bought me some lemon juice. Secondly, the recipe says to start by melting a stick of butter in a skillet. I should have read the recipe through because I didn't realize that you were supposed to put all ingredients in said skillet. Needless to say, the one I chose was way too small and I had to dump everything in a bowl. Oh well. I am not sure if this or the buttermilk debacle made any difference.

For comparison, here are the pics from last week (right) vs this week (left). Notice how thick the batter was last week vs. this? And the difference in the end appearance? (Sorry, I couldn't the pics exactly in line.)

I definitely will be making this again. Everyone who had a piece gave it a big thumbs up.