Soul Food · bread

Hot Water Cornbread

Hot Water Cornbread reads richness 7.0, sweetness 5.6 and salinity 3.6 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Soul Food bread, about 17 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 7.0 · Sweetness 5.6 · Salinity 3.6 · Warm Spice 2.0 · Umami 1.7 · Nutty 1.4 · Heat 1.2 · Bitterness 0.9 · Earthy 0.6 · Fruity 0.5 · Sourness 0.5 · Floral 0.5

What's in it (9)

Time & effort: about 17 min (12 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 170.2 kcal, 2.9 g protein, 10.2 g fat, 22.7 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. This is not the skillet cornbread that goes in the oven. Hot water cornbread is a hand-shaped fried cake, and it is older and plainer: cornmeal scalded with boiling water, patted into an oval between wet palms, and dropped into hot fat. It belongs to the same family as the ash cake and the hoecake and it needs no oven at all, which is exactly why it survived in kitchens that did not have one.
  2. Use stone-ground white cornmeal and nothing else. Degerminated supermarket meal will not swell properly against the boiling water and gives a gritty, sandy cake. Any Southern mill will ship it; look for one that stamps a date on the bag, because the germ is still in it and it goes rancid.
  3. Whisk the cornmeal, salt, sugar, baking powder and black pepper together in a heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling water over all at once and stir hard with a wooden spoon — it will seize into a stiff, steaming mush in about 30 seconds. Stir in the melted butter.
  4. Let it stand 5 minutes so the meal drinks the water, then beat in the evaporated milk. The batter should hold a shape but still be soft, like thick mashed potato. If it is stiff, add a spoonful more milk.
  5. Heat the lard in a heavy skillet to 175 C (350 F) — a pinch of batter should sizzle immediately and rise. Wet your palms in cold water, take about 3 tablespoons of batter and pat it into an oval about 8 cm long and 1.5 cm thick. Slide it into the fat away from you.
  6. Fry three or four at a time, 3 minutes a side, until they are deep gold and crisp all over and float. Drain them standing on end on a rack, not flat on paper, so the bottoms stay crisp. Eat them hot, with greens and their pot likker.
  7. Substitutions: peanut oil can stand in for the lard.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

Keep reading: what richness, sweetness, salinity mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.