How to Make Delicious Buttery Cornbread

If you have been searching for how to make delicious buttery cornbread that is both airy and soft, then you just found it!

Ditch Jiffy or any other store-bought cornbread mixes and make this at home, it is authentic and easy to make. Don’t take my word for it, you have to try it for yourself!

Looking for a delicious dish to pair with your cornbread? Check out our hearty Chicken Chili recipe!

Cornbread Recipe Inspiration

Churning out quality recipes requires work and lots of research. While researching recently on the particular cornbread recipe that I believe will give me what I want, I came across 2 recipes that caught my attention.

One was by Chef Joshua Weissman and the other by John Kanell of Preppy Kitchen. There were a few things I liked about both recipes, so what did I do?

You guessed right! I merged both recipes and came up with the ULTIMATE CORNBREAD recipe. Kanell’s recipe seemed like the good ol’ recipe for cornbread, Weissman went on to use browned butter in his mix and that just took the cornbread from ordinary to EXTRAordinary. I skipped the addition of herbs (as Joshua did) like sage and thyme to my browned butter, I did not want anything to alter the taste of my cornbread.

Here are some other buttery baked goods you should try:

• How to Make Flaky Nigerian Meat Pie
• Warm and Sweet Strawberry Cobbler
• How to Make the Famous Nigerian Chicken Pie

Ingredients for Cornbread

Ingredients needed for this recipe include:

Cornmeal

If I guess right, you must have searched far and wide for the best cornmeal for cornbread. I used good quality yellow cornmeal, while this is not an ad, if you want the product I used, you can find it here.

Unsalted Butter

This was used both in the mix (browned first) and to coat the pan generously prior to baking.

Flour

Regular all-purpose flour is used in this recipe.

Egg

One egg is enough for this recipe but remember to adjust the ingredients based on the size or quantity of the cornbread you are making.

Salt

You can use normal table salt for this recipe, John Kanell added in kosher salt in his recipe, it did not seem to make much of a difference, to me that is.

Whole Milk & Sugar

I used half-and-half, you can use any other type of milk preferred. White granulated sugar was also used, you can use brown sugar if you would like that caramel-like flavour in there.

Raising Agent

The only raising agent needed here is baking powder.

Cast Iron Skillet

While you can use a regular baking tin if you do not own a cast iron skillet, it just will not produce a cornbread with that added crispy finish on the edges. That added crisp is everything and more!

A few things to note…

Contrary to many other recipes online, we will not be using equal parts cornmeal and flour, the flour quantity will be lesser than cornmeal. Using too much flour results in dense and dry cornbread, and that is not what I am wanting to achieve.

It took me making cornbread multiple times to perfect this recipe. If you do make this, drop a comment and let me know how it turned out.

Cornbread Recipe

2 highly rated recipes merged to produce a perfectly delicate and irresistible batch of cornbread. One that is decadent, buttery and full of flavour. Pair this with our chicken chili to make for a memorable experience.

5 from 1 vote

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Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 30 minutes mins

Total Time 40 minutes mins

Course Dessert, Side Dish

Cuisine American

Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 1½ cups yellow cornmeal
• ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup granulated sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp salt
• 1½ cups cups whole milk
• ¼ cup unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp Tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 18" cast iron skillet

Instructions

 

• Heat up the 1/4 cup unsalted butter in your cast iron skillet and continue to stir and toss around until it has browned nicely. Transfer to a heat-proof bowl and let it cool down.
• In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, stir together.
• In another bowl, mix together the milk, egg and browned butter.
• Preheat your oven to 400F, oil your cast iron skillet with the 1 Tbsp of butter, insert in your hot oven prior to mixing the batter.
• Combine the wet and dry ingredients, it is important that you mix till just combined, do NOT overmix.
• Take out the cast iron skillet from the oven, pour in the cornbread mix into the hot skillet.
• Bake for 30 mins or until a toothpick comes out dry when inserted.
• Let it sit for 10 mins before turning it over unto a flat dish.
• Serve warm, top with some butter and honey/maple syrup.

Video

Notes

Tips

• It is important that you refrain from over mixing the cornbread batter, it is okay to find that the batter is not exactly smooth. Mix until the ingredients are just combined, overmixing will produce cornbread that is dense, heavy and hard in texture.
• While browning the butter, you can do this on medium heat but it is best to keep monitoring as it could burn easily. The goal is to prevent the butter from burning.

Keyword chicken chili