Corn Bread

Corn bread recipe, taken from an unknown source and fiddled with since. Notable changes: use of whole wheat flour and stone ground corn meal. This makes the corn bread very crumbly. See also: vegan corn bread.

Preheat oven to 400˚F.
Mix the following dry ingredients well, especially to spread the baking powder out. The ratio of corn meal to flour can be varied.

1 cup Yellow stone-ground corn meal (blue corn meal is too weird)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tablespoon double acting baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

Make a depression in the dry ingredients—there is no need to double the number of dirty bowls—and pour in:

1 cup Buttermilk
⅓ cup Vegetable oil - I use grape seed oil
¼ cup Maple Syrup (Grade B) or Brown Sugar
1 large Egg, lightly beaten (beat in the measuring cup)

Mix the wet and dry ingredients until just blended—that is, as little as possible.
Let batter stand for at least 15 minutes. This lets the baking powder rise the dough. If the batter is left to stand longer, cover and refrigerate. I have not tested longer or refrigerated rises.
Coat an 8" cast iron pan with a small amount of butter.

Non-stick pans wear out too frequently, and end up in the dump. Cast iron cookware lasts for generations, and eliminates any chance of teflon toxicity problems. I actually use a specialized cornbread wedge pan. This pan requires a second run with the remainder of the batter.

Let the pan preheat in the oven for several minutes to help melt the butter. Preheating the pan better browns the cornbread.
Spoon batter into pan and cook for about 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out by-and-large dry on insertion. Cooking time depends on the oven; my cooking times have gone down since I placed a pizza stone on the bottom rack of my oven.
Optionally, turn the broiler on, and cook briefly to darken (but not burn!) the top of the corn bread.

Serve warm, with honey or a fruit spread. This corn bread is very crumbly, so will not stand up to honey comb or thick butter being spread on it. Leftovers can be sealed in a tin container and stored at room temperature for at most a few days.