Cornbread from memory ...

This year, a birthday gift from my Cousin Christina was grain, the kind of grain, so fresh and recently milled it must be immediately frozen upon receipt. It is a precious thing, this cornmeal from Anson Mills in Columbia, South Carolina. 

Ten years ago, I made cornbread every week.  It was a great recipe that I had memorized but today I recall only that yogurt was involved and that it called for both baking powder and baking soda. They say that the past is a country all its own with a language all its own. Unfortunately I no longer speak the language of a decade ago I look to Anson Mills for guidance. Modifications to the company's recipe include the substitution of yogurt for milk, the addition of baking soda to baking powder as well as cheddar cheese and chilies for fun. 

RECIPE: Killer Cornbread 

What 

2 C Anson Mills cornmeal ½ C yogurt 1/4 C water ¼ C cream or milk, fine salt, some,  1/4 t baking soda, 2-3 t baking powder, 2 eggs ¾ stick of butter ½ -1/4 C pickled chilies, sliced thin ½ C cheddar, 1-2 T maple syrup (optional) 

How 

Preheat oven to 400 melt butter in saucepan on top of stove (resisting all temptation to merely melt in cast iron skillet while oven is preheating. Sadly the brown butter will not endure a thirty minute bake.) mix dry ingredients mix dry ingredients When cool, add all but 2 T butter to wet ingredients combine wet with dry ingredients fold cheese and chilies into batter with a spatula heat remaining 2 tablespoons of butter into cast iron skillet remove from oven before browning add batter to warm, buttered skillet bake for 30 minutes. When the cornbread comes out of the oven, invert on a rack and let cool.

Enjoy while warm now or in the future, but not the past...