Cornbread: The Shot Glass Way

How many times have you said to yourself, “Self, what would I do if my only cooking implements were a shot glass, a bowl, and a cast iron skillet, and I really wanted to make some cornbread? Would I be fucked, or what?”

Thanks to the revolutionary method of cooking cornbread you are about to learn, the answer will now be “or what,” although to be honest life is probably not so good for reasons having nothing to do with cornbread if you find yourself in this situation. The way this revolutionary method works is, you measure things with a shot glass instead of with a measuring cup. Note that when I say a shot in the recipe, I mean a big shot class filled to the brim—one of those 2 fluid ounce ones, which is a quarter cup.*

Ingredients:

• 5 shots flour
• 3 shots cornmeal
• 1 shot sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder**
• Hefty dash of salt
• 4 shots buttermilk
• 1 shot vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

If you’re going to be drinking while you cook this, you should probably use a different shot glass for that, or wait until you finish using the main shot glass for measurements. I don’t know what whiskey does to cornbread.

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Or so. Why are gas ovens always so hard to calibrate?
2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
3. Beat the egg. Add the buttermilk and vegetable oil.
4. Grease the living shit out of your skillet (or pan, if you prefer) with butter. I’m talking like three coats of butter all over that sumbitch. This is how the goodness gets in the crust.
5. Mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients. SPECIAL BONUS TIP: Don’t do this until you’re ready to put it in the oven. Once you mix them the baking powder starts doing its thing, and if you let it sit around for a while it’ll go flat. I used to have this happen when I would pre-mix a second batch while the first cooked, until my old landlady Laura set me straight.
6. Put the goop in the skillet, put the skillet in the oven.
7. This nominally takes 20-25 minutes to cook. If your oven sucks as much as mine, you just gotta be on your toes. Check it starting at 15 minutes or so—you’re going for that point where a fork comes out clean from the middle. Err on the side of caution.
8. De-oven, de-heat, de-skillet. Breakfast for a week!

Also, just in case you wanted them, here are the results of some of my experiments with this recipe.

• The half-flour/half-cornmeal variant: This is the one with four shots apiece of flour and cornmeal. Some recipes recommend it, and I used to do it a bunch cause it kind of seems more authentic (corn bread oughta really be about corn, you know?), but I just don’t think it’s as good. Kind of grittier, and tastes less sweet.
• The milk/buttermilk decision: Your standard cornbread recipe is going to call for milk instead of buttermilk. Why you would ever use milk when you could use buttermilk totally escapes me. Plus I used to make it that way, and it is definitely better with buttermilk.
• The vegan edition: You can substitute some banana for the egg. I did this once, and nothing disastrous happened.
• The maximum butter option: In general, if you want to make things better, add more butter. In this case, you can replace the vegetable oil with melted butter. Personally I don’t do this much because it’s a pain in the ass to melt the butter, and also I’m worried about getting addicted.
• The forgot-to-add-salt mistake: Why is salt so forgettable? I know, most recipes say it’s optional. But cornbread just ain’t the same without it. I throw salt onto the cornbread when I eat it if I forget about this.
• The more baking powder way: imagine if your cornbread was carbonated. That’s basically what happens, texture-wise, if you go with the three tsp of baking soda that some recipes recommend. You might be into that.
• There are ways to make sweeter cornbread. Personally I’m a bit fearful about mucking with the sugar : grains ratio, but other bolder souls might want to try some experiments.
*For those who prefer non-shot measurements:

• 1 ¼ cups flour
• ¾ cup cornmeal
• ¼ cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Hefty dash of salt
• 1 cup buttermilk
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Butter

**I know, I didn’t mention any teaspoon. That’s because it sounds less cool. It is a non-canonical teaspoon.

Also, I broke the fonts and they won't get un-broke. Oh well.