beer, bacon and cheddar cornbread

Recently I made cornbread in my cast iron skillet. If you've never done that, try it. Assuming you have a cast iron skillet, of course. It makes a nice crust, and it's even better if you're making a recipe that uses bacon. You fry the bacon in the skillet, take out the bacon and pour off most of the bacon grease leaving only enough to coat the skillet. Then you put the corn bread batter in that same skillet and pop it in the oven to bake. Yum!

So, what did I change in the recipe? (You know I always change something.) I added scallions since I had some in the fridge to use up, and I doubled the cheese. That's it. Oh, and I greased the cast iron pan with bacon grease left over from frying the bacon. This particular recipe doesn't call for that; however, I like the crust it produces.

It was delicious, just like I knew it would be. It was salty and a little smokey because of the bacon, and tangy because of the sour cream and beer. I used Yuengling Premium since that's what was in my husband's camping cooler outside. He says he couldn't taste the beer, but what does he know?? I tasted it right away, because I don't actually like beer. It gave the cornbread a good flavor, though.

My only gripe is with the shredded cheese I used. Lately I've been shredding my own cheese from a bigger block; however, I had some packaged shredded cheese I needed to use up. What a difference! As you can see, it looks kind of dry on top and almost seems like it didn't melt. It didn't taste cheesy either. Considering I doubled the cheese on top and the amount I mixed in the batter, that's really disappointing. There's nothing wrong with packaged shredded cheese, it just doesn't really melt the same in some recipes.

Here's the recipe I used:  Beer, Bacon and Cheddar Cornbread