PW's Cornbread

I have been using the same cornbread recipe for 37 years. I tried a few new ones here and there and always came back to my orginal one.  So I didn't mind trying PW's cornbread, but I didn't really expect much, and I certianlly didn't expect to LOVE it!  The proportions are different than my old recipe, and the way to mix it is different.

 I did change one thing. PW calls for 1 teaspoon of salt, but in my experince, I felt that was too much salt, so I bumped it down to 1/2 teaspoon. I was glad that I did. Another change I made, was that I no longer have a cast iron skillet--I passed it to my daughter-in-law, Julia, a few years back, since I was not using it much. So my skillet substitute was my Pampered Chef stoneware pie pan. It worked great! I could not heat it on the stovetop,so I preheated it in the oven with about a tablespoon of canola oil.

And I used canola oil in the recipe instead of the solid shortening called for. Pouring the batter into the hot dish ove the hot oil made a nice sizzle and immediately formed a nice crispy edge. I baked it at 425 instead of 450, because my oven tends to cook hot.

My husband asked if I put something really moist into the cornbread--but I think it is just the large proportion of liquid to dry that this recipe calls for. It made the cornbread very moist. We both just went to town on this cornbread, and ate more than half of it between us! This recipe is definately in a dead heat with my old one...