Build Your Own Homemade Windshield / Windscreen for the Camp Cast Iron Dutch Oven. When cooking outdoors, this will be both a way to hold in the heat and to show off to passers by at the campsite.
“Sulae, you’ll be cooking with these long after I am gone and in the ground.” – Granddaddy
Cornbread cooked in cast iron. There’s really no other way to cook cornbread, is there? This is the simple recipe for cornbread that we use for everything from our round, basic cornbread to corn muffins to cornbread-topped chili. It’s an easy, 6 or 7 ingredient recipe that will create a nice, crumbly-centered, crunchy, and buttery-crusted cornbread.
I have created this recipe with beer, buttermilk, sour cream, and even a mixture of beer with another liquid ingredient. The key to this recipe is the consistency of the cornbread batter. You can experiment with other ingredients; just get an initial feel for the consistency of the batter.
This batter will be thicker and airier than most cornbread batters. That baking powder will start reacting fast when you add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.
When cooked, the top (as it sits in the cast iron) will be lumpy and bumpy. But, that’s the faux top. It was bottoms up at my house growing up. We would always flip our cornbread and serve the buttery crust upside.
Don’t cut back on the butter. This recipe does not call for any oil. The oil…rather fat…will come from the butter we use in the skillet. The key to great cornbread that does not stick is the butter. When we preheat that cast iron skillet at 425°F / 215°C with that butter in the skillet, the cornbread will start to cook as soon as it hits that hot butter. We want that cornbread to “cook” on that butter and not on that cast iron. The excess butter will soak into that cornbread and give it that crunchy, buttery crust. It will also create a cornbread that will just pop out when it’s flipped later. And…AND! The butter will add to the seasoning of that skillet.
It’s important that you do not let that butter burn. And it’s equally important that the butter is not only melted before you add your batter but HOT! It’s that in-the-middle butter that you are looking for. You want the butter to be “toasted” but not dark brown like roux-color (dark red or dark brown). The butter should “brown” a little and that batter should sizzle a bit when pouring it into that pan.
Most of the time, after we pop out that cornbread, I will run a dry towel over that cast iron surface while holding the pan over the sink to catch the crumbs. Try it and your pan will come away even more beautiful than before you cooked that cornbread!
If you want to use a 12” skillet and create this recipe, then that’s A-OK. If you use the recipe as-is, you’ll end up with a thinner version of this cornbread (not better or worse…just thinner). If you want to create a ginormous batch of cornbread, double this recipe. That 12” skillet will hold almost twice the volume of that 10.25” skillet. That’ll be a lot of cornbread.
It’s amazing how much more the 12” skillet can hold versus the 10.25” skillet. I filled my Wagner 10.25” with water and poured it over into my Lodge 12” skillet. Then, I filled the 10.25” again and poured it into the 12” inch. Aside from a cup or so, the 12” took most of the water from the second fill.
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Lodge L8SK3 10-1/4-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet: https://amzn.to/3HN2BJg
Lodge Yellowstone – 10.25″ Skillet: https://amzn.to/3piSUMg
Lodge Cast Iron Skillet with Red Silicone Hot Handle Holder, 12-inch: https://amzn.to/44yKwZn
Lodge Yellowstone – 12″ Skillet (makes me wish my name was “Dutton”): https://amzn.to/3LZbfae
Lodge L10SKL Cast Iron Pan, 12″, Black: https://amzn.to/3VB5zq5
Measuring Spoons: https://amzn.to/3n8o5J5
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Silicone Spatula Set: https://amzn.to/3VFKkmZ
Cutting Board: https://amzn.to/42nIGt4
Baking and Cooling Rack: https://amzn.to/4310Pxa
Dry Ingredients:
1 ½ cup Yellow Cornmeal
1 ½ cup All-purpose Flour
2 Tablespoons Baking Powder
2 teaspoons Salt
Wet Ingredients:
1 cup Half and Half
½ cup Beer
2 Eggs
FYI: 2 to 4 tablespoons sugar for more of a muffin, sweeter flavor.
RESERVE 4 Tablespoons of Butter (don’t add to the recipe).
Let’s get started. Mix your ingredients as per dry and wet. Keep them separate until you are ready to pour that batter over and into that hot cast iron skillet. The butter is NOT to be mixed into the recipe; the butter is to be added to the skillet and the cornbread will take up what butter it wants.
Step 1: Add the 4 tablespoons of butter to the 10.25” cast iron skillet.
Step 2: Preheat your 10.25” cast iron skillet with the butter in a 425°F / 215°C Oven. Keep an eye on it; don’t let the butter burn.
Step 3: Blend all the dry ingredients together. Wait before you add the wet ingredients.
Step 4: Mix the wet ingredients: 1 cup of half and half and the ½ cup of beer to a bowl and then add the two eggs. Whisk together well with a fork or whisk.
Before adding and mixing the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients, wait until just before you are ready to add the batter to the hot skillet with the melted and slightly toasted butter.
NOTE: The butter will toast and there will be some solids that have “toasted” themselves out of that butter. That’s okay. It’s all good. You just don’t want burned butter.
Step 5: Once the skillet in the oven is wicked hot and the butter is just starting to brown (toast), pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients and blend well with a rubber / silicone spatula to create the batter.
Step 6: Remove the hot skillet from the oven and set on the stove top. Pour all the batter into the middle of the hot skillet and spread about as evenly as it will allow. The edges will be bubbling up from hitting that hot butter.
Step 7: Return the hot skillet with the batter to the 425°F / 215°C oven and let it bake for about 25 minutes…give or take. I like the top of the cornbread to bake until the top is toasted a bit.
Step 8: After 20-25 minutes and when it “looks” done, test the center with a knife like testing a cake for doneness. Some folks use a toothpick or something similar. I just use a table knife and see if anything wet still needs cooking.
Step 9: Remove the cornbread from the oven and let the cornbread cool just a bit in that skillet; the edges of the cornbread will start to pull away from the sides of the skillet just a bit as the cornbread cools. Don’t leave it too long; it’ll sweat, and you’ll lose that crunchy texture. It will not take long, about 2-4 minutes to be ready to remove.
Step 10: Cover the cornbread with a plate or a cutting board. Turn the skillet up and the plate down to flip the cornbread out and upside down. There ain’t no reason to wait for it to cool. Just start enjoying it!
Chef Tip: Add 3 to 6 tablespoons of sugar for more of a muffin-like, sweeter flavor.
Chef Tip: Buttermilk makes a GREAT cornbread. You will need to consider the consistency of butter milk and add a bit more beer (just a bit) to get the right consistency if you use buttermilk.
Chef Tip: Consider using a coarse-ground cornmeal instead of the finely ground cornmeal. It will give the cornbread a wonderful texture.
It’s kinda gunky ain’t it? Na. To me it’s a treasure. Want to read the story as to why this skillet is a treasure to me? Sure, you do. Here’s the link: https://beerandiron.com/2023/05/wagner-1891-original-cast-iron-skillet-story
And, it’s just that easy. This recipe can be modified and “played” with. Consider adding corn kernels to the batter or maybe some green chilies. Some cheese mixed in that batter is amazing!
Hey. My name is Sulae. And I love to share the magic that comes out of my black pots and pans. Y’all keep hanging out here at BeerAndIron.com and take a moment to sign up for the newsletter. Trust me, I ain’t gonna bug you.
We’ll see you all next time. And keep on cooking in those black cast iron beauties and enjoying those frosted glasses of that fermented barley pop! Que the pop, hiss, and gurgle-gurgle of beer pouring into your frosted Shaker Pint!
Lodge L8SK3 10-1/4-Inch Pre-Seasoned Skillet: https://amzn.to/3HN2BJg
Lodge Yellowstone – 10.25″ Skillet: https://amzn.to/3piSUMg
Lodge Cast Iron Skillet with Red Silicone Hot Handle Holder, 12-inch: https://amzn.to/44yKwZn
Lodge Yellowstone – 12″ Skillet (makes me wish my name was “Dutton”): https://amzn.to/3LZbfae
Lodge L10SKL Cast Iron Pan, 12″, Black: https://amzn.to/3VB5zq5
Silicone Spatula Set: https://amzn.to/3VFKkmZ
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I first saw that old, rusty skillet hanging on that old, tattered cedar fence. It’d been there since the 70s. And then one day…
My granddad gave me my first cast iron skillet in 1987 and after 35 years of cast iron cooking, I ain’t ever made a pan of mac and cheese. I was almost a little embarrassed when she asked me about my go-to mac and cheese recipe; I felt my skin get all flushed. Got a little mad at myself and pushed out my bottom lip a bit. And, what did I tell her?
A few weeks ago we went camping with this dessert on the menu. There are three things that mix well: Camping, Dutch oven cooking, and BEER. And, when camping in a very public, people-filled campsite on an open plain in the high desert with it’s unpredictable weather, BEER helps maintain that bit of emotional stoicism and makes for a fabulous camping trip.
When packing for a camping trip we always include beer to cook with, drink “with,” and a few extras as a just-in-case “with.” On the way out of town, we made a visit to our favorite, local pub to “raid” the fridge. My pub always has a few interesting brews in the cooler (and sometimes hidden elsewhere if I ask and look pitiful enough).
The cooler is where they keep the $7.00, $12.00 and even the $25.00 cans and bottles of fermented awesomeness. Though the $25 brews are *usually* avoided, there was this one $12.00 brew that caught my eye. Not by the complexity of the can art (something that draws me in like an enticing book cover). As can art goes, this one was sorta a plain-Jane.
Then, boogedy…boogedy…boogedy…off to the great wild to blaze a trail to a very public, and “groomed” campsite. Our camping season usually starts with this local campground that has many things to do such as scorpion hunting, an observatory, sand dunes, and WIND! Oh my gracious. The wind is often relentless out there; but it’s a hit-or-miss. This time: MISS!
Nonetheless, we had beer, iron, and plenty of food.
“Black as midnight, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch.” – Blix the Goblin
We had eaten breakfast before departing on our adventure; I knew we’d be eating a little earlier in the evening than normal. So, I skipped a lunch in order to “save some room” for the cast iron creation that was planned for that evening. At three in the afternoon, with all that wind and blusteriness, there wasn’t much to do other than pull the Dutches out, add fire to the coals, and crack a beer.
That $12 brew poured black as midnight. Despite the blowing wind, the sun was shining bright. When I held up that glass up to the sun, I thought about the Black Knight, “NONE SHALL PASS!” (And if you don’t get that reference, we just can’t be friends). It was dark. It was sweet. And, it was delicious! 16-ounces of pure joy! Definitely a “sipper” and one to drink like cooking a great roast: low-and-slow.
A bit later I pulled out the 12” Dutch oven and started assembling my Cantina Jack Chicken recipe. Then I pulled out my 8” Dutch oven to “assemble” this dessert. I say, “this dessert,” because I had not come up with a name for it yet. These recipes are trial-and-error to get them just right and I usually name them after the fact. I knew I had to come up with something clever and tropical-sounding. After all, with ingredients like bananas and pineapples, what could be a better dessert to plan for during a camping trip with 20 mile per hour winds and a high of 40-something degrees (tongue-in-cheek)?
Once the Cantina Jack Chicken was in the pot and “under the fire,” I started gathering the supplies for our dessert…but…something went kinda catawampus. And not a cooking catawampus but my ability to think-kind of catawampus. Just trying to “do the math” on my coal-count for my little 8” Dutch was giving me grief. At my house math is my “thing,” and English is my wife’s “thing.” But I just couldn’t seem to think. The first problem I had was trying to figure out twice of eight and how many coals to go on top and then on the bottom.
My wife just stared at me with her why-are-you-asking-me-math-questions look when I asked, “What’s two times eight?” At first, I didn’t realize I asked that question out loud; it was supposed to be an “internal affair” rather than an embarrassing “external” question (you know, when you thought you said it in your head but your mouth didn’t get the memo). My wife usually gives me a “math look” when I ask her math problems. But, this “math look” was different. After I answered my own question, she asked to see my beer (that I had only had half). She said, “No wonder.”
There was this short period of time where her “no wonder” comment entered my ear but had not yet registered in my brain. My brain was busy toiling over the dessert preparations. Not to mention the distracting aromas from that cooking Cantina Jack Chicken as they piggybacked on the steam sneaking out from the edges of the lid of that 12” Dutch. “Wonder what?” Turns out my sweet, dark, barrel-aged porter was a fifteen-percenter. I ate breakfast but planned on “saving room” for double helpings of that Cantina Jack Chicken for dinner.
Most would like to brag about how they came up with a name for a recipe; there ain’t no bragging here. I was having so much trouble thinking but didn’t correlate the beer as the culprit. What I meant to say next was “Why am I having so much trouble making this banana and pineapple dessert?” What came out was, “Why am I having so much trouble making this bananapapple dessert?!”
Now I wondered, “why is my wife laughing so hard.”
“What?
A few weeks ago we went camping with this dessert on the menu. There are three things that mix well: Camping, Dutch oven cooking, and BEER. And, when camping in a very public, people-filled campsite on an open plain in the high dessert with it’s unpredictable weather, BEER helps maintain that bit of emotional stoicism and makes for a fabulous camping trip.
It was on this camping trip where we came up with this name, “Bananapapple.” Yes, there’s a story behind this name that involves beer and giggling.
This recipe does very well in a 10″ or an 8″ cast iron Dutch oven at camp.
Using your 10.25” Cast Iron Skillet, smear 1-2 tablespoons of butter all on the inside of the skillet where you’ll be pouring your cake batter once you’ve created it. I smear butter all the way to the edge of the skillet. This will be your non-stick in the making. Keep the “smearing” butter (about 1-2 tablespoons) separate from your icing butter (about 2 tablespoons). BE SURE TO Leave the icing’s 2 tablespoons of butter out to soften and get to “room temperature.” You’ll need this soft butter for the icing later.
Preheat Oven to 350°F / 177°C.
You see that “1 cup granulated sugar?” That’s a lot of sugar, right? But, this is a dessert so don’t skimp out on me. Here’s a trick: AFTER YOU SMEARED THE BUTTER TO THE INSIDE SKILLET SURFACE, pour in the entire cup of sugar into the buttered skillet. Hold it with two hands and rotate it all about to spread the sugar into the butter. The sugar will create a “floured” surface to pour your cake batter into. But, DON’T THROW THE REST OF THAT CUP OF SUGAR OUT. There will be a lot of sugar left; pour that in with the dry ingredients. That will go into the cake!
Mix all the dry stuff in a large bowl and sift together: 1 ½ cups flour, the remaining portion of the 1 cup sugar (remember there’s sugar all in the cast iron skillet sticking to the butter coating), ½ tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, ½ tsp cinnamon, and mix in the ¾ cups of nuts.
In another bowl, scramble the 2 eggs up real good.
Mash and measure your bananas (eat the rest…there’s always “the rest”)
Mix all the wet stuff in with the eggs: ½ cup crushed pineapple, 1 tsp. vanilla, ½ cups oil, and the 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 bananas).
Now we’re making magic. Mix your wet and dry ingredients together.
Pour your batter over into your buttered and sugared 10.25” skillet.
Place the skillet in the oven at 350°F / 177°C. We’re baking for 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. If you peek, you’ll see the cake “cooking” from the outside towards the center and is a light tan color. Eventually it will start to brown…we’re getting close!
Once the cake is done, pull it from the oven and let the cake rest for about 10-20 minutes. This will cause it to shrink and “pull away” from the skillet. If you try to pull it out too soon, it’ll break. Give it a bit of resting time while you finish up that (or pour another) beer.
After it’s cooled for about 10 minutes (not more than 20 minutes), run a spatula (or equivalent) around the edge of the skillet between the cake’s edge and the skillet rim to “loosen the cake.” The big question: will it stick and break? Just tossing it out onto a cooling rack may cause breakage due to the motion and less likely due to stickage.
With the skillet sitting normally, place a cooling rack or a plate over the top of the skillet. Using both hands (that skillet will still be hot), turn the skillet upside down and the cake should just lay out onto the cooling rack or the plate.
Let the cake cool to a “warm temperature.” Unless you want to eat it hot and steaming (it’s delicious that way too especially with some ice cream on top as the ice cream melts and blends with the cake).
Step 14: In a medium bowl, mix your powdered sugar and the soft butter.
Step 15: Add three tablespoons of beer to the powdered sugar and butter mixture. Start stirring and mixing with a fork to blend. Initially it may look like you need more but you likely don’t; keep mixing.
This recipe should feed about 6-8 people…it’ll feed less if y’all are cuttin’ loose…it’ll feed more if y’all are on a diet.
There’s a story behind the “Bananapapple” name. Yes, it involves math, hot coals, and a 15%-er. It’s a stupid story but I know you’re asking, “what in tarnation is a Bananapapple?” But, if you don’t know what “tarnation” means, I’m sorry but we can’t be friends. (I’M JOKING!…only a little).
*Mixing Your Icing Tip: Go with a Medium Bowl to Mix The Icing (1 ½ cups of powdered sugar “fluffs out” of the bowl when mixing…go deeper on your bowl selection).
If the Bananapapapple Cake turns out “too dry” for your pallet, add ¼ more oil to the recipe. Or, better yet, add that 2nd tablespoon of butter to the skillet when you are doing the “smearing.”
If you put this in the refrigerator, the icing will crust up a bit and get kinda crack-ly.
ENJOY!
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I am always sharing fresh, flavorful, recipes cooked up in well-seasoned cast iron awesomeness with a bit of my liquid, hop-based, happy-maker as an ingredient.
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