Southern Style Buttermilk "Corn" Bread- Grain Free

So excited to share with you this recipe!!  How do you make cornbread without corn you ask?  I answer: keep reading, it is not as hard as you may think!  

The salty, crunchy crust is my favorite part!

This recipe was definitely inspired by my southern roots growing up in a small rural town in Georgia.  When I was a little girl, I had a sweet older lady who lived across the street whose house I visited almost daily.  She had chickens, baby chicks, eggs to pick up, she made spoons from gourds, brooms from broom grass, she made homemade candy and buttermilk and most important, she made lacy cornbread and hoe cake.  Every day it was always on the table, covered with a dish towel.  The lacy cornbread was just that, a thin cornbread that was cooked in leftover bacon grease in a flat cast iron skillet on top of the stove, very crunchy around the edges, it so good!  The hoe cake was a fried buttermilk biscuit cooked in a regular cast iron skillet either fried in lard or bacon grease. 

This Southern Style Buttermilk "Corn" Bread recipe was actually suppose to be the hoe cake, but it reminded me of cornbread so I kept modifying recipe until I achieved a sweet "corn" bread.  So what should have been a big biscuit is now "corn" bread and the grain free world is a better place for it! ;-)

The trick is to have a hot cast iron skillet when you pour in your batter. This creates the nice crust that you think of when you envision Southern cornbread.  Also, using salted butter (or adding salt to butter) to cook the "corn" bread in is a must.  This gives you that sweet inside with a salty, crunch outside.

This can also be made in a corn stick cast iron pan in the oven.  Preheat the stick pan and the oven to 350 degrees.  Add 1 tsp of salted butter to each stick well.  Use about 2 tablespoons of batter for each stick.  Bake for about 15-20 minutes, trying to achieve that brown crust, but do not burn.  Remove carefully.  This recipe is more delicate than the traditional cornbread.

I like sweet corn bread so I used almost 2 servings (just a little bit) of Kal Stevia.  If  you don't like sweet corn bread and looking for more savory, add perhaps just one serving or omit it completely.

As you will see, I made the recipe a few different ways, using a few different ingredients and the "corn" bread turned out great.  

This Southern Style Buttermilk "Corn" Bread was great with my 3 Meat Chili! 

Southern Style Buttermilk "Corn" Bread

Serves 4

1/2 cup Almond flour

2 tbps coconut flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder (or homemade baking powder- see below)

1/8th tsp salt (only add if not using salted butter)

1-2 servings of Kal Stevia (depending on desired sweetness)

1 egg

1/4 cup buttermilk (or 2 tbsp of sour cream, 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream and 1/2 tsp of vinegar)

3 tbsp of butter, melted (salted)

**Extra 2 tbsp salted butter for pan (if you don't have salted butter, add 1/8th tsp of salt to pan along with butter)

1. Place 8 inch cast iron skillet on top of stove on med-low heat while preparing batter.
2. Blend dry ingredients.
3. Whisk wet ingredients well.
4. Add wet to dry and mix.
5. Let stand for 3-4 minutes and mix again.
6. Add butter to frying pan. 
7. Then add batter, spreading it out to almost completely cover the pan.
8. Reduce heat slightly and cover and cook 10 minutes.
9. Turn off heat and remove cover and allow to set for another 5.
10. Serve warm.  Carefully remove first piece of bread using a small spatula.

The Set up.

The finished product. 

Homemade Baking Powder 

1 tbsp baking soda

2 tbsp cream of tarter

1 tbsp arrowroot powder

1. Mix ingredients well.  Substitute when recipe calls for baking powder exact proportions. 
2. Store in airtight container.  

Nutrition for Southern Style Buttermilk "Corn" Bread:

Each Serving: Less than 3.5 net carbs (using buttermilk)