Southern Smokey Bacon And Honey Cornbread Recipes

SMOKED BACON & ONION SWEET CORNBREAD

Steps:

• In a large mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt and sugar. Sift together until thoroughly mixed.
• In a 12 inch cast iron skillet, fry up your 4 strips of thick cut bacon. Chop them up into small pieces and put them into separate mixing bowl.
• Chop the green onions and add them to the mixing bowl with the bacon. Now add in the milk, eggs and 2 tablespoons of the bacon grease.
• Now pour the wet ingredients into the larger mixing bowl with the dry ingredients and thoroughly mix these together. Set the batter aside.
• Get your smoker going. You'll want to get this hotter than you usually do. We'll need it up to about 375. Put your cast iron skillet in right away, so it's good and hot when you pour the batter inches I used apple wood for this cornbread, but you can use what ever wood you prefer.
• Note: Remove the water pan to allow more heat. I also had to open the side door on my Webber Smoky Mountain vertical smoker a couple of times to get it hot enough. It would start dropping back down towards 350, then I would open the door again for about 1 minute to get it moving back up.
• Once it's up to temperature, pour the batter into the skillet, close it up, and maintain this temperature as best as possible. (If you have an electric smoker, this shouldn't be any problem!).
• This should take about a half hour to cook. Stick a toothpick into the center of the cornbread. If it comes out clean, it's done. Another indicator of it being done is that the sides should start pulling away from the pan.
• Take it off and serve it up in the skillet. It will stay nice and warm sitting in the skillet!

CORNBREAD... SOUTHERN BACON CORNBREAD

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 375°F Coat an 8x8 baking dish or use your cast iron corn bread skillet.
• In a large bowl mix in the cornmeal, flour, bacon bits, baking power, salt and pepper.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, honey, brown sugar and oil. Stir in the corn. Pour into dry ingredients and stir until completely moistened, do not over mix.
• Pour into prepared baking dish or cast iron pan and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Serve.

BACON CORNBREAD CUPCAKES WITH HONEY BUTTER

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Put the bacon in a cold pan over medium-high heat, flipping three-quarters of the way through cooking, until crisp, about 10 minutes. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate and reserve the fat.
• Grease a 12-cup muffin tin with some of the reserved fat and set aside. In a big bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and some salt.
• In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, buttermilk and 2 tablespoons of the reserved bacon fat to a uniform color.
• Chop 10 slices of the bacon coarsely into roughly 1/4-inch pieces. Finely chop the remaining 2 slices and set aside.
• Quickly but gently fold the liquid mixture into the dry mixture. (It should be a loose batter, not a dough. If not, add just a tad more buttermilk or even some cream.) Then, fold in the coarsely chopped bacon.
• Divide the batter among the muffin cups in the prepared tin and bake until the tops are golden and a toothpick comes out somewhat clean, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool for 7 minutes, then turn them out upside-down so they develop a nice thin crust on the baked edge. Cool to just warm or room temperature before frosting, another 7 to 10 minutes.
• Beat the honey, butter and a pinch of salt together with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a large closed-star tip and pipe a generous tablespoon on the tops of each of the cupcakes. Serve.

SOUTHERN STYLE CORNBREAD

Steps:

• Adjust oven rack to lower middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Set 8-inch cast-iron skillet with bacon fat (or vegetable oil) in heating oven.
• Measure 1/3 cup cornmeal into medium bowl. Mix remaining cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in small bowl; set aside.
• Pour boiling water all at once into the 1/3 cup cornmeal; stir to make a stiff mush. Whisk in buttermilk gradually, breaking up lumps until smooth, then whisk in egg. When oven is preheated and skillet very hot, stir dry ingredients into mush mixture until just moistened. Carefully remove skillet from oven. Pour hot bacon fat (or melted butter) from the skillet into the batter and stir to incorporate, then quickly pour batter into heated skillet. Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven and instantly turn cornbread onto wire rack; cool for 5 minutes, then serve immediately.
• Note: Though it is preferable to make cornbread in a preheated cast-iron skillet, a 9-inch round cake pan or 9-inch square baking pan, greased lightly with butter and not preheated, will also produce acceptable results if you double the recipe and bake the bread for 25 minutes.