Jim wrote:

>>Arkansas Cornbread
>>
>>2 cups yellow cornmeal
>>1 teaspoon baking soda
>>1 teaspoon salt
>>2 cups buttermilk
>>2 eggs well beaten.
>>
>>Stir the dry ingredients together eliminating any lumps in the soda.
>>Beat the two eggs well and add the buttermilk and eggs to the dry
>>ingredients.
>>
>>Heat the oven to 425F, take a 10 or 12 inch cast iron skillet add a
>>tablespoon of oil, put in the oven as it's heating. When oven is ready
>>pour the cornbread mix into the skillet and then bake for 20 minutes or
>>until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the pone comes out dry.
>
> I did something very similar to this a couple weeks ago. The only
> change was it was cooked at 450.
>
> I liked the flavor, and the texture was different, but pretty good out
> of the oven. But it didn't 'pop' like I thought it should. It
> didn't raise hardly at all.
>
> I used powdered buttermilk & my soda is a 1/2 full box that has worked
> in everything else.

I'm guessing the culprit was the powdered buttermilk. Cultured buttermilk
has a natural acidity which might not be present in the powdered stuff.
You'd need that acidity to get the chemical reaction to make the cornbread
rise. If you just mix the powdered buttermilk with water, does it taste
sour?

A couple of other ways to go astray:

1. You shouldn't mix the batter too well. The more thoroughly you mix, the
less the dough will rise because the bubbles from the leavening reaction are
popped.

2. You'd need to cook the batter as soon as it was mixed, or you'd lose that
leavening action because all the bubbles would rise to the surface of the
batter and escape.

Bob