Cornbread Recipe

If you’re looking for the perfect cornbread with a moist, tender crumb with notes of brown sugar and butter and a crisper than crisp edge, you’re in the right place. My cornbread recipe is beyond easy, and you will never use the box stuff again. This cornbread will be ready before you know it. So, let’s get started.

Preparing the Skillet

First off, get that cast iron skillet out and pop it into the oven. Then set the oven to 425. We want this screaming hot when the batter goes in because that is the only way to get a perfect crisp cornbread edge.

Mixing the Dry Ingredients

While that’s getting screaming hot, we’re going to add our dry ingredients into a large bowl. Starting with 1 cup or 120 g of all-purpose flour, followed by two cups of cornmeal. And I’m using a stone ground cornmeal, but use what you have on hand. Two and a half teaspoons of salt. And it might seem like a little bit much, but it adds so much flavor to the cornbread. It’s really important. I like mine a little bit on the sweet side. You could add a couple tablespoons of sugar. I’m adding a full ¼ cup tightly packed brown sugar. I’m also adding in ¼ teaspoon of black pepper. I love the combination of a little bit sweet, but with a little bit of a kick. Our last dry ingredient is for the leavening. 2 and ½ teaspoons of baking powder. Okay, let’s give that a whisk. And also break up the brown sugar. Brown sugar is a delight as it adds a ton of flavor. But those clumps, I can’t even tell you how much I’m annoyed by them. You can use your hands to break them up. Whisk, whisk, whisk, and set aside.

Preparing the Wet Ingredients

Okay, now it’s time for our wet ingredients. For the wet ingredients, we’re adding 2 cups or about 480 ml of buttermilk into a bowl along with two large eggs, no shells, please, and ¼ of a cup or 70 g of melted butter. Whisk it up just to combine.

Heating the Skillet

Before I mix the wet and dry ingredients, I’ve got to get the skillet out of the oven. So, get a trivet out. It’s very hot. It’s hot. Okay. Right now, one generous tablespoon of butter. That’s what you want to hear. Hot. And a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Swirl it around and pop it back into the oven while you complete the batter. What happens is that melts, gets really hot. We pour the batter in and it creates like fried cornbread which is amazing and delicious. So, it’s a very important part of the steps.

Combining the Batter

Now, let’s mix that batter up. That is cooking up a storm. I will not mind if it gets really hot and the butter starts to brown. That’s an extra depth of flavor there. But in the meantime, let’s just make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in all of this delicious buttermilk melted butter situation. We’re going to mix until just combined. Don’t over mix this. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, don’t worry. You can make this either in a cake tin or a regular baking dish. But be careful if you’re using like something enameled because it doesn’t like going into the oven empty and then getting stuff poured on top when it’s hot. I have not learned that the hard way. This is nice and mixed. I don’t see any lumps. We’re going to get our skillet out, but work on top of the stove cuz it’s hot, hot, hot. It’s time to pour all of our batter in. You hear the sizzling sound? That’s what you want to hear. Perfect.

Baking

We’re going to pop this back into the oven at 425 for 20 to 25 minutes or until the center is set and springy.

Cooling and Serving

25 minutes later, my cornbread is golden brown and just the smell is amazing. But we’re not done yet because this has to come out of the pan fairly quickly. So plop it out and just—Whoa, this bottom is nice and crisp, but if you left it in the pan, steam would come out and it would just soften up. We want to keep it nice and crisp. So let it cool on a cooling rack. I like the top to be unmarred, so I’m going to be returning it back. There we go. This can cool down now. I don’t know if you can hear that, but the sound and taste and texture will be amazing. Okay, time to slather on the butter. Now, it’s time for a bite. And I’m having the edge with all the fried butter part. That’s the best. It’s hard to describe, but you can taste the temperature it was baked at, if that makes any sense to you. Like I can taste the sizzling butter and that crumb is so nice. You’ve got to try this recipe.