Homemade Dutch Oven Cornbread Recipe
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| Cornbread is in back, to the right. Also pictured is our dutch oven ribs, homemade pumpkin muffins with icing and tator tots in the oven. |
What you'll need to make cornbread in a dutch oven:
- A dutch oven. We use our 4 Qt shallow dutch by Lodge Logic. Brand name doesn't matter of course...at least, not unless someone wants to sponsor me? LoL! (I prefer Lodge Logic) What DOES matter is depth. You'll want to cook your cornbread in a shallow oven for a more even cooking temperature. If you cook your cornbread in a DEEP oven, it can still be done but odds are you'll burn the bottom before the top gets cooked. (Heat has to travel farther down from the top of a deep oven to reach the cornbread)
- Heating source. We use charcoal, both lumped and briquettes. Whatever is on sale at the time. At our last purchase, we found 40lb bags of lump El Diablo mesquite charcoal for under $8. I posted the deal here and in the future will post super deals related to survival on this blog. We loaded on up on several bags at this price. I have also used plain old wood. You just have to experiment a little to determine how much ember to use.
- Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter; melted
- 2 cups cornmeal
- 4 eggs; beaten
- 3 cups hand ground flour (we use our WonderMill); all-purpose flour will also work
- 3 cups milk
- 4 tsp. baking powder
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
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| Half-eaten cornbread, gone in minutes! Homemade brownies in background. |
Optional Tools: Lid lifter, thick leather gloves or a towel
Mix the Ingredients:
- In a large bowl mix together butter, eggs, and milk.
- In a separate bowl sift together sugar, cornmeal, flour, baking powder, and salt.
- Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients 1 cup at a time until well blended.
- Spoon cornbread mixture into your dutch oven. A properly seasoned oven will not need to be greased. If you have not seasoned your oven, you can lightly grease you dutch oven and spread evenly.
Cooking:
- Cover Dutch oven and bake using 8-10 briquettes on the bottom and 14-16 briquettes on the top. If you are using lump coal, such as the El Diablo mentioned above, break the coal into chunks. You want the chunks to fit under the dutch oven when it is placed on the coals. Place the chunks touching each other and the diameter of the chunks should not stick out from underneath the oven. Same goes for the top of the dutch oven. Generously cover the top but don't overload it. You can spot check by raising the lid from time to time and checking on the cornbread's color.
- Cook for APPROXIMATELY 20-25 minutes or until cornbread turns golden brown. The temperature of your fire will depend on how you built your coals and how red they were before dumping them out of the chimney starter. A simple test for telling whether your cornbread is done or not is to simply stick something down into the middle of the bread. I use a fork or knife. Stick it in the center of the cornbread and push down until you reach the bottom of the oven. Then pull it out and look at it. If there is any runny or liquid cornbread on the fork/knife, then cook it a little longer. When nothing sticks to your fork/knife, and the top is a golden brown, you are done. I noticed that I can usually smell the cornbread when it is almost done cooking.
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| Cornbread is done when top is browned and you can stick a fork through the middle with no gooey batter left on the fork when pulled out. |
Serves: 10-12 people easily.
Keeps fresh very nicely for days in the refridgerator. We usually put it in zip lock baggies or tupperware.
