question for cornbread experts

[ssgold]

How does the thiness or thickness of the batter affect cornbread? What is a typical ratio of buttermilk to flour and cornmeal?

I am working with a group of volunteers to make several pans of tamale pie for a homeless shelter. I tried out this recipe as a test run. The cornbread batter seemed really thin compared to other cornbreads I have made, so I added 1/4 cup more of both cornmeal and flour. It had 2 cups of buttermilk to 1 1/2 cups cornmeal and 1/4 flour. (I also used milk plus lemon juice so it may have been an issue too). The cornbread was good but it was too thick for the amount of filling, so I need to rework the recipe a little. I'm trying to decide if I should just cut down on the buttermilk a bit or reduce the entire topping recipe by 1/4 and leave the batter thin as written. I know that's all pretty confusing! Why did I need to mess with the recipe????

[funniegrrl]

The traditional Georgia cornbread we make in my family has equal parts self-rising cornmeal and buttermilk. The batter is thin and the finished product has a moist, somewhat open, coarse crumb. I don't know that it would be what people would expect on a tamale pie, though.

[ssgold]

Thanks. That's exactly what I was looking for. Here in New Jersey, I don't think there is any expectation for tamale pie! I think I am using the term loosely because a lot of the recipes I found cooked the cornmeal mixture. It might be appropriate to call it cornbread topped vegetarian chili. We are trying to do somthing different from the usual pasta casserole that children of all ages can help with, so this fit the bill.

[tovie]

There's also an egg in there that counts as liquid.

Your recipe as written is about equivalent to the tamale pie I make, which has a higher ratio of liquid to dry ingredients, and most of the tamale pie recipes I just pulled up on google appear to also have a higher ratio of liquid to dry.

Were you happy with the topping other than it made too much for your filling? If you were, I think I would just reduce the recipe and not mess with the liquid/dry ratio.

Reduced by 1/4

1 cup + 2 Tbs cornmeal
3 Tbs flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
4 1/2 tsp oil or melted butter
beat the egg and measure out 3 Tbs of it for the recipe (1 lg egg = 1/4 cup)