#corn bread

[savorytoothgirl]

Jalapeño Honey Butter Cheddar Corn Biscuits

[daily-deliciousness]

Tex-mex cornbread-topped beef pie

[brattylikestoeat]

[dietkiller]

Jalapeno Bomber Cornbread

[fullcravings]

Cornbread Cake

[vegan-nom-noms]

Beefy Vegan Chili

[imaf00die777]

[u-mspcoll]

Recipe of the Month: Ella Hall's Corn Bread (circa 1920s-1940s?)

Photograph of Ella Hall, Ann Arbor, MI, undated.

Keeping with last month's theme of cornbread, this month’s recipe is also corn bread, but from the 20th century. Ella Hall was a Black landlord and cook who lived in Ann Arbor from the early 1920s until she passed away in 1962. Her manuscript cookbook resides in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive and a facsimile edition will be released by the University of Michigan Press in June 2026. 

This manuscript cookbook, self-titled “The My-T-Fine Recipes,” was preserved by Susan Wineberg, who received it from her friend and landlord, Bailey Rodgers, himself a tenant and friend of Ella Hall. The recipes are wide ranging. Today’s blog post features Ella Hall’s shorthand notes for cornbread, but she also recorded recipes for dandelion wine, grape drink, popcorn balls, ice box cookies, English fruit cake, and waffles for [an] electric iron. Ella Hall seems to have been an adherent of Swans Down Cake Flour and her recipe book includes several colorful clippings of cake recipes. If I get ambitious this summer, I may attempt Pineapple Layer Cake or even Lady Baltimore Cake for our monthly recipe. However, for today, please enjoy and consider trying this quick and easy cornbread: 

Corn Bread 3/4 c. cornmeal 1 1/4 c. flour 1/4 c. sugar teaspoon baking powder 1 c. milk 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 egg 1/2 tablespoon melted butter

As is fairly common in personal recipe books, Ella Hall recorded only the ingredients for this recipe, a kind of shorthand memory aid for a recipe followed steps she knew well. For my version of this recipe, I mixed the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, combined them in a greased 8x8" pan, and baked for 20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The result was quite tasty, and if I had time to combine it with other dishes, I think it would go beautifully on a summer’s day with Mrs. Hall’s Green Tomato Pickles and Pepper Hash!