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Spoon Corn-Bread
2 cups water
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup white corn-meal
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Mix the water and corn-meal and bring slowly to the boilingpoint. Cook five minutes. Add the milk, butter, salt and wellbeaten eggs. Beat thoroughly and bake in a well-greased pan for twenty-five minutes in a moderately hot oven (350° F.). Serve from the same dish with a spoon.
A straightforward spoonbread: a cornmeal mush enriched with milk, butter and eggs, then baked until just set. The only real technique is in the mush stage.
- Cook the mush properlyWhisk the cornmeal into cold water before heating, then stir constantly as it comes up to a boil so it does not lump or scorch. Five minutes of simmering should give you a thick, smooth paste that pulls from the sides of the pan.
- Cool before the eggs go inThe recipe adds milk, butter and beaten eggs to hot mush. Stir in the milk and butter first and let the temperature drop before the eggs, or you will get threads of scrambled egg through the batter.
- White corn-mealSouthern-style fine white cornmeal is the traditional choice and gives the smoothest texture. Yellow meal works, though many cooks find its flavour more pronounced; avoid self-rising cornmeal mix, which contains leavening and salt.
- OvenThe original gives a figure, 350°F, alongside its 'moderately hot oven'. Twenty-five minutes suits a shallow pan; a deeper dish will need longer.
- DonenessThe center should be set but still soft and custardy, puffed slightly and lightly browned on top. A knife inserted off-center comes out clean; a bit of creaminess at the very middle is correct, not underdone.
- No leaveningThere is no baking powder here. The lift comes entirely from the eggs and steam, so beat the eggs until frothy and get the dish into the oven promptly.
- Yield and servingServes four to six as a side. The recipe has it spooned straight from the baking dish; it settles as it cools, so bring it to the table promptly.
Spoonbread belongs to the Southern branch of American cornbread cookery, and its name is generally understood as descriptive: it is too soft to cut, so it is served with a spoon. The method — cornmeal cooked to a mush, then loosened with milk and bound with eggs — is closer to a pudding or a soufflé than to a quick bread, and it is often traced to Native American cornmeal porridges that colonial cooks adapted with dairy and eggs.