MARY QUESTION: I hate to admit that I'm 75 years old and just now wondering why my cornbread is all of a sudden so crumbly. My husband gets really "disturbed". It's happened the last few times I've baked it. What am I doing wrong?
ROSE REPLY: as i illustrated in my génoise posting, when something has worked for years and suddenly doesn't, it's always bc one is doing SOMETHING differently. think hard what that could be. generally speaking, cornbread is crumbly if there is too high a proportion of cornmeal to flour. you need the gluten in the flour to hold it together and also enough moisture. if it is too high in fat it will also be too tender and crumbly. i don't know what ingredients you are using but you could try using a higher protein flour if you are using a cake flour or soft southern flour such as white lilly. try a bleached all purpose. hope this helps.
