We love our vintage Griswold Corn Stick Pan.
Today, as we walked home from work, snow was in the air, and not too long after we got home, it was sticking to the ground, for the first time this fall. Winter is here. So we decided that we'd have chili for dinner and that we should make some cornbread to go along with it.
So I dug up Paul Prudhomme's cornbread recipe, which we always use: it's sweet in just the right way, though we only use about half of the recommended amount of sugar. We also never use the corn flour (because we never have any in the house, and frankly, have never seen it for sale anywhere), and we just substitute a 50-50 mix of regular corn meal and regular flour, and it works out fine. Our pan is plenty old, and it's pretty well 'cured' like cast iron should be, so it cooks just fine, even though it looks a little grungy.
Today, as we walked home from work, snow was in the air, and not too long after we got home, it was sticking to the ground, for the first time this fall. Winter is here. So we decided that we'd have chili for dinner and that we should make some cornbread to go along with it.
So I dug up Paul Prudhomme's cornbread recipe, which we always use: it's sweet in just the right way, though we only use about half of the recommended amount of sugar. We also never use the corn flour (because we never have any in the house, and frankly, have never seen it for sale anywhere), and we just substitute a 50-50 mix of regular corn meal and regular flour, and it works out fine. Our pan is plenty old, and it's pretty well 'cured' like cast iron should be, so it cooks just fine, even though it looks a little grungy.
The first time we used it, I wasn't very sure about the old pan: cornbread baked in an ear-of-corn pan just seemed a little corny, I guess. But the corn stick is actually the perfect shape for a piece of cornbread: the right size for a serving, with a lot of surface area to give the sticks a tasty crunch.Half a recipe (including only half an egg) works perfectly to fill up the seven ears of the corn stick pan. No pictures of the sticks out of the pan, I'm afraid: I didn't grease the pan up quite enough this time, and they came out in chunks--but very tasty ones.
Vintage Griswold cast iron (made in Erie, PA) is always collectible, but there doesn't appear to be any shortage of these on eBay, where you might be able to pick one up for ten or twenty bucks. But when winter comes around, and you want 
cornbread, it's worth every penny.
cornbread, it's worth every penny.
1 comment:
I have a cast iron baking pan in the shape of fishes that I like to use for cornbread. I haven't used it in ages...maybe cornbread should be on my menu soon.
I use a recipe I got from one of my mom's parishioners who won a blue ribbon with it at the state fair. She uses a mix of corn meal and flour, too.
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